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GCSE English Literature · key term
Faithfulness to a person or promise; in marriage, this includes keeping the commitments made to a spouse.
Used by Edexcel and Eduqas
Paper 1
Revise: Love and marriageThe ring symbolises fidelity, and its loss would announce a failure of love. Portia's apparent surrender therefore also establishes an obligation that she can enforce. Shakespeare plants the condition here so that the audience remembers it when Bassanio later gives the ring away.
Component 1
Faithfulness to a partner or to a promise.
Part (b): build an argument about what love requires: choice, risk, fidelity or negotiation. Support it with well-chosen references from elsewhere in the play; close language analysis is not separately assessed.
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Nevertheless, his earlier description of Portia as wealthy complicates any claim that his motives are entirely selfless. His success is a hopeful beginning, not final proof of fidelity.
