Act 4 — The Merchant of Venice — Eduqas GCSE English Literature C720
Eduqas GCSE English Literature · C720
Act 4
The plot, part by part
What you need to know
The trial: Shylock's demand for his bond, Portia's plea for mercy, her ruling on flesh and blood, Shylock's punishment and forced conversion, and the rings given away.
Key quotations: 'A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch / Uncapable of pity', 'a lodged hate and a certain loathing / I bear Antonio', 'Hates any man the thing he would not kill?', 'I am a tainted wether of the flock, / Meetest for death', 'The quality of mercy is not strain'd, / It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven', 'My deeds upon my head! I crave the law', 'A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel!', 'I cannot find it; 'tis not in the bond', 'This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood', 'Tarry a little; there is something else', 'He presently become a Christian', 'I am not well: send the deed after me, / And I will sign it'.
Structure: the trial's reversal, as Shylock's insistence on the letter of the bond is turned against him, then the turn back to comedy with the rings.
Context: Shylock's forced conversion, and how productions have staged his exit, from a villain's defeat to a tragedy.
Eduqas's Shakespeare questions don't mark context: the extract question (15 marks) and the whole-play essay (20 marks, plus 5 for spelling, punctuation, vocabulary and sentence structures) both mark response and analysis of language, form and structure (AO1 and AO2). Use context only in a phrase that supports an interpretation, and say which question each worked paragraph practises.
