Order Merchant Of Venice Assignment

Order Merchant Of Venice Assignment
The big risk in Antonio’s line of work is that the ships which bring his goods to Venice might sink somewhere out in the ocean. But he tells his friends Salerio and Solanio that he’s not worried about his finances because he has more than one ship going to different destinations and also enough savings to survive some losses (see lines 41-45).
Bassanio is a gentleman not a merchant. This means he comes from a noble family and thus doesn’t work for a living. But though he can claim a nobleman’s status, he doesn’t have much money, probably just a rather small income from a family estate. Yet he likes to live as though he does have a lot of money and as a result has to borrow money from his friends, particularly Antonio, in order to keep up his gentleman’s lifestyle. In scene 1 he is worried about how much money he owes to Antonio (see lines 121-133, pp. 30-31). Bassanio has a plan to repay Antonio. He proposes his plan to Antonio in lines 139-151 where he uses a complicated metaphor about finding a lost arrow by shooting a second one in the same direction (“In my schooldays, when I had lost one shaft”). He describes his actual plan in lines 160-175 on page 32 in the speech beginning “In Belmont is a lady richly left.” Antonio replies that he will help Bassanio in any way that he can though he doesn’t have much cash on hand at the moment.
Order Merchant Of Venice Assignment
In the text box below, please answer the following questions:
1. Explain what Bassanio’s plan is.
2. Look at Antonio’s willingness to keep spending money on Bassanio’s “project” even when he himself is short on cash. Is he just interested in getting his money back or is it the friendship which is more important? (Another way of thinking about this would be to consider what Antonio’s priorities are in this conversation with Bassanio.)
If you’re having trouble understanding the conversation, click on this link: https://www.sparknotes.com/nofear/shakespeare/merchant/page_12/