Merchants in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice: A Transactional Analysis

Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is a play with multiple merchants engaged in multiple transactions with multiple motives. The key characters – Shylock, Antonio, Bassanio, Portia, Jessica, Lorenzo, Nerissa, Graziano, and the Duke – are involved in one sort of business dealing or another. Indeed, there are 10 specific transactions: one finance transaction; one international trade transaction; one gastronomic transaction; two inheritance transactions; three marriage transactions; and two legal entrepreneurship transactions. In these deals, commerce and love are almost indistinguishable, and justice and mercy clash.

Thus, lawyers can analyze the drama from a transactional perspective, and spot issues they encounter, directly or by analogy, in everyday practice.