There's something similar in all these lines. Can you spot it?:
"I am Sir Oracle, and when I ope my lips let no dog bark!"
"You call me misbeliever, cutthroat dog, and spit on my Jewish gaberdine... Should I not say, "Hath a dog money? is it possible a cut can lend three thousand ducats?"... you spurned me such a day; another time you called me dog-and for these courtesies I'll lend you thus much moneys."
"The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder, snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day more than the wildcat. Drones hive not with me."
"I have never heard a passion so confused, so strange, outrageous, and so variable as the dog Jew did utter in the streets"
"Thou called'st me dog before thou hadst cause, but since I am a dog beware my fangs."
"Oh, be though damned, inexecrable dog... Souls of animals infuse themselves into the trunks of men... for thy desires are wolvish, bloody, starved, and ravenous."
"For do but note a wild and wanton herd or race of youthful and unhandled colts fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud."
Yes! You got it. Shakespeare uses a lot of animal imagery. And in this particular play, lots of dogs. Maybe I'm hypersensitive to the subject because I'm still on the fence with my newest idea for a major (Wildlife and Wildlands Conservation), but as I was reading through the text I couldn't help but notice the motif. I almost focused only on the dogs, because there are a lot of them, and, for the most part, they all focus on Shylock. But I though it was important to recognize that he uses animals generally for comparisons, as well as to make a repeated point about one character.
Shylock is compared to a dog over and over again. Sometimes by others, sometimes by himself. With today's attitude of dogs as man's best friend, this might not be much worse of a comparison than to say that Shylock was inferior, but loved. However, in Shakespeare's time the idea of keeping dogs as pets was frowned upon. They were used for hunting and gaurding, and not much more. One special troupe of dogs used was trained to preform, do tricks, and jig as part of Elizabethan entertainment. Another form of entertainment, dog fighting, dates back thousands of years. But their value as companions was not appreciated.
So as Shylock is repeatedly being called a dog, there is a sort of dehumanization going on. They are saying he is inhuman and less than them. He claims they call him dog without cause, and then warns them to beware his fangs. I think images of violence are easier for people to imagine when they are linked to animals rather than people. We like to think of people as rational, and animals as driven by instinct. With Shylock acting as the animal, his anger with Antonio seems much more real and dangerous. And Shylock seems more inhuman and less capable of mercy. The other characters dehumanize Shylock by comparing him with a dog, and he retaliates by showing anger and intolerance characteristic of an animal. Still not sure if he's the villain of not...
Erik | October 21, 2011 at 12:55 PM
That is interesting that there was so much imagery in your play about animals. It did not seem like there was any at all in mine about Richard II. Are there any elements in the play you studied that are more conducive, perhaps, to animal references than other plays?
Martina S. | October 21, 2011 at 2:18 PM
Wow, that's a good question... I feel like comedies and romances would have more lighthearted imagery that histories or tradegies, so that's probably part of it. But with this I think of it as being intentional. Shakespeare wanted to put across the point that all the other men degraded Shylock and thought he was less than them for being a Jew. And the motif he chose for that was comparing Shylock to a dog. The other animal imagery isn't more than normal, although it is still important.