How Shakespeare presents Jessica, and how the character develops across the text: Shylock's daughter, who leaves her father's house with his money to marry Lorenzo and become a Christian.
The key quotations for this character and how to analyse them, with the context that shapes them.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'Alack, what heinous sin is it in me / To be ashamed to be my father's child!', 'If thou keep promise, I shall end this strife, / Become a Christian and thy loving wife', 'I have a father, you a daughter, lost', 'I am much ashamed of my exchange', 'I will make fast the doors, and gild myself / With some more ducats', 'That he would rather have Antonio's flesh / Than twenty times the value of the sum', 'One of them showed me a ring that he had of your daughter for a monkey', 'I shall be saved by my husband; he hath made me a Christian', 'In such a night / Did young Lorenzo swear he loved her well, / Stealing her soul with many vows of faith', 'I am never merry when I hear sweet music'.
Her conversion and a daughter's duty to her father, and how her last scenes at Belmont can be played as happy or uneasy.
OCR's question on this play is one essay, from a choice of two, for 40 marks: an extract-based question on the printed extract and the play elsewhere, or a discursive question on a view of the play, using at least two moments. Response (AO1) and language, form and structure (AO2) carry the most weight and equal weight, context (AO3) counts as the play shows it, and 4 marks are for vocabulary, sentence structures, spelling and punctuation (AO4). An extract-based answer that never leaves the extract, or a discursive answer built on one moment, cannot go above Level 3. Each worked paragraph and exam tip is labelled with the question it is for.
