A very Jewish villain

Of course, people in Shakespeare´s plays are stereotypical. All his tragic heroes are of noble blood and the ordinary people are there to be laughed at. And Jews can only be villains, if they don´t convert. That doesn´t mean that Shakespeare himself had to be a hater of Jews, no more than it means that he thought that people of his own background couldn´t be heroes or have tragic ends. It´s just that he worked in a context where there could be no people of "low" birth starring plays as tragic heroes and there could be no Jewish characters who could stay Jewish and still be prortrayed well. It´s the same thing with Molieré(1622-73). He was of bourgeois birth and in his plays bourgeois people, who don´t understand how much above them the aristoracts are, are cruelly mocked. Shakespare and Molieré both lived in a rigid class system (more in theory than in reality, but theory was what mattered in portrayal of class) that was totally Christian.

In today´s United States you can´t make a Hollywood movie whose tragic hero would be a Muslim terrorist that hates the United States and who in the end succesfully kills the US president. In Shakespeare´s time you couldn´t make Shylock a nice, good guy or write a play where he wins his lawsuit - that would not have never, ever happened in real life - and ends keeping his daughter. As there was no Jews in England, most of his audience would not have likely met a Jewish person, but would still have a very negative view of Jews - even if they wouldn´t know much about Judaism or Jews - and wouldn´t have understood nor accepted what we would now call a politically correct portrayal of a Jewish merchant of Venice. Which doesn´t mean that Shakespeare himself really wasn´t what would later be called an antisemite. He probably was, as most Christians were, like most Europeans and people of European background in other parts of the globe were racists in the 19th century.

One thing to be remembered is that a real Jewish merchant of Venice at Shakespeare´s time wouldn´t have had good view or warm feelings toward his fellow Christian inhabitants of Venice. The Christians largely hated and oppressed Jews and the Jews hated them back. It´s like in today´s Palestine. In Western media there are claims that Palestinian children are "taught" to hate Israel and Jews, like they otherwise wouldn´t. The thing is that they have good and real reasons to hate Israel and a real life Shylock would have had lots of good reasons to hate Christians in 16th century Venice. We have this view in the western countries that to be a rightfully called a victim you have to be a real f*cking saint, a meek person who forgives all and hopes the best for all. Of course these kind of people exist, but Shylocks exist too.