Dramatic Conventions

Act 3

Consider which characters (or places in the case of juxtaposition) illustrate the following conventions:

comic relief A humorous scene or speech in a serious drama which provides relief from emotional intensity and, by contrast, heightens the seriousness of the story.

tragic flaw The weakness of character, wrong judgement which leads to the destruction

of a main character in a tragedy.

caricature Exaggeration by means of often ludicrous distortion of parts or characteristics.

juxtaposition Two scenes or characters placed one after the other to create contrast of one another’s qualities.

 

It’s not unusual for Shakespeare’s plays to have a dual plot, but Merchant has 4 plots: the casket plot, the ring plot, the elopement plot, and the pound of flesh plot. For the first three acts of the play, consider the following questions:

Which themes connect to which plots?

Is there a character or place common to every plot?

Do any of the plots exist within the play from beginning to end? If not where does each begin and end? What is the affect of four plots?

Act and scene Quotation Technique and meaning(1.1.8-10) “Your mind is tossing on the ocean, There where your argosies with portly sail

Like_______________________________,” 1.2.148-151 “To shoot another arrow that self way

Which you did shoot the first, ________________________________”

1.1.169-172 “…her sunny locks

Hang on her temples like a golden fleece…__________________________________.”

1.2.36 “How like a fawning ____________he looks! 2.1.15-16 “Besides, the ______________________

Bars me the right of voluntary choosing:”

Act and scene Quotation Technique and meaning

2.9.28-30 “…but like _________________ Builds in the weather on________________,

Even in the force and road of casuality.” 3.2.44-45 “Then if he lose he makes a swan-like end,

Fading ________________.” 3.2.121-123 “The painter plays the spider, and hath woven a golden mesh _______________________

Faster than gnats in cobwebs.” 3.3.7 “But since I am___________, beware my fangs”