What's the theme about justice vs mercy in the Merchant of Vernice?

Question

I am having my final exam tomorrow and I still know nothing about it.Please help....I need help desperately asap...Thanks a lot!!!!

Answer 1

The whole thing comes together in Portia's speech to Shylock during the trial scene (Act IV, scene i). "The quality of mercy is not strained..." etc.

Shylock has every legal right to cut a pound of flesh out of Antonio. HE knows, it ANTONIO knows it...everyone knows it. He is demanding "justice," even though what he really craves is revenge.

Portia's argument is simple: just because you have the POWER to do something, it doesn't mean that it's the RIGHT thing to do. She gives Shylock every possible opportunity to "temper justice with mercy." She even proposes it to him in terms that any good businessman would understand: he can have twice as much, or even THREE times as much money as he's entitled to under the terms of his contract with Antonio. But, he continues to insist on pure justice; the letter of the law.

Portia's speech is really quite beautiful. She says that men (and women, of course) are most like God when they demonstrate mercy. She TRIES to get Shylock to embrace the notion. But he doesn't, and that's his undoing.

After the tables are turned on Shylock, Portia turns to Antonio (who was, only moments earlier, saved from Shylock's knife), and says: "What mercy can you render him, Antonio?" In essence, she's saying to him: you just SAW what happened when Shylock refused to show mercy; now, what are YOU going to do?

Answer 2

It is encapsulated in Portia's address to the court

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/297200.html