Jessica (The Merchant of Venice) critics have historically viewed the character negatively, highlighting her theft of her father's gold, her betrayal of his trust, and her apparently selfish motivations and aimless behaviour. In her 1980 survey, "In Defense of Jessica: The Runaway Daughter in "The Merchant of Venice"", Camille Slights calls out Arthur Quiller-Couch's opinion in the 1926 "The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare" as an extreme but representative example: Slights sees this as a consequence of sympathetic readings of Shylock, where the play is seen primarily as exposing Christian hypocrisy, and his actions merely natural responses to ostracism and prejudice. In such a reading Jessica's
The Father (Strindberg play) her way to oppose injustice, and the play also demonstrates how factors can lead one to become fiercely determined. At the time the play was written, Strindberg's marriage was deteriorating with his wife Siri von Essen, and situations in the play could have very loosely resembled situations occurring in his failing marriage. Different religions, Methodist, Baptist, and an occult spiritualism, exist in the household and vie for Bertha's acceptance. There are also references in the play to Greek Mythology and Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice" and "Hamlet". Strindberg was aware of the literary discussions regarding what constituted naturalism in drama, and