Antonio (The Merchant of Venice) Antonio (The Merchant of Venice) Antonio is the title character in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice". An influential, powerful and wealthy nobleman of Venice, he is a middle-aged man and a merchant by trade who has his financial interests tied up in overseas shipments when the play begins. He is kind, generous, honest and confident, and is loved and revered by all the Christians who know him. His willingness to die for Bassanio is a manifestation of his character. Antonio manifests anti-semitism by cursing and spitting at Shylock (anti-semitism was common in Europe in Shakespeare's days). He is a structural
The Merchant of Venice 1989, and follows the events in "The Merchant of Venice". In this play Shylock gets his wealth back and becomes a Jew again. The "Star Trek" franchise sometimes quote and paraphrase Shakespeare, including "The Merchant of Venice". One example is the Shakespeare-aficionado Chang in "" (1991), a Klingon, who quotes Shylock. Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List" (1993) depicts SS Lieutenant Amon Göth quoting Shylock's "Hath Not a Jew eyes?" speech when deciding whether or not to rape his Jewish maid. In David Fincher's 1995 crime thriller "Seven", a lawyer, Eli Gould, is coerced to remove a pound of his own flesh