ESSAY CEMETERY

"Let me play the Fool. With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come."  (Gratiano, 1.1.79-80) In Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice , different powers are at play, directing the fate of the characters. While many readers have focused on the thematic tension between Christianity and Judaism, the play's secondary plots involving Lancelot, Gratiano and Nerissa contain elements of the Elizabethan theological debates over Calvinist predestination. Lancelot's consultation with his conscience and "the devil" holds many parallels to Marlowe's Doctor Faustus , a play whose theological content was in Shakespeare's time and still is much debated. A secularized account of the Elizabethan discourse on free will and predestination, randomness, and fate is evident in the text: Antonio feels doomed to sadness, Portia feels tied to her father's will, and Lancelot feels bound to his master, but in fact, the three are able to assert control over their futures

Overall summary In her 1985 article "Gender, Family and the Social Order", Susan Amussen surveys the social and familial hierarchies of Early Modern England. At that time, she explains to the modern reader, there was no conception of the family as a private unit. Instead, Renaissance theorists frequently drew parallels between the socio-political monarchic and governmental structures and the familial structure of husband, wife, and children.  Amussen discusses two influential propagators of this parallel. First, political theorists who were concerned with the social state of affairs discussed the relationship between the king and his subjects in terms of the relationship between husband and wife and children. Just as the obedience of children of their parents is a divine commandment, it was considered the divine right of the king to rule over his subjects. Similarly, the agreement between kings and subjects was compared to the marriage contract, and rebellion of a royal subje