The Merchant of Venice

I'v introduce three Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and The Taming of The Shrew. You may get tired and bored reading these stories with some hard metaphor and morals. In that case, this week I;m going to switch the channel and introduce a different style of Shakespeare's works, The Merchant of Venice.

Despite the title it is, the main story of it is about the love pursuing of the Merchant's friend, Bassanio. Bassanio want to propose to a rich and beauty lady who lives far away , but he doesn't have enough money for traveling and proposing. Thus, he turn to Antonio, the merchant, for help. Antonio helps him to borrow huge money from a Jew merchant, Shylock, with the deal that if they fail to give the money back in time, then Shylock will scrape a pound of flesh from Antonio's breast as compensation. With the money and true love, finally Bassanio marries the lady. However, does Antonio and Bassanio pay off the debt or not? As usual, read and find it yourself!

I like this one of Shakespeare's works I've seen. for it's the easiest and the most entertaining with no complicated combination of words and metaphor difficult to understand. I don't feel the life is somehow dark and unfair after reading this story. Hero wins, bad guy lose.It's like a Hollywood commercial movie, and you can find great joy in it. Though, it still has philosophy of life, but just not that much as others. If you feel bored reading previous stories, try this one and you're gonna like it!

The Taming of The Shrew

How do you think the relationship between husband and wife shall be? Nowadays, most people are convinced that men and women shall be on the equal level in marriage. However, that's not how things work in Shakespearse' age. Thus, he made "The Taming of The Shrew" to describe the discrimination between men and women that time in a ironical way.

Katherina and Bianca are daughters of a rich man. Katherina is tough and aggressive, and nobody likes her. On the other hand, Bianca is such a cute and sweet girl that have plenty of proposers. One day, among the proposers, a man, Petruchio , shows crazy for Katherina instead of the lovely Bianca  which rises Katherina's interest. There is someone who aren't afraid of her and like her! At first, she is reluctant to marry him and refuse to act like a " wife " － obey to her husband in every way. However, Petruchio uses all dirty tricks he can to "tame" his wife. Wonder how P plays the tricks and what becomes Katherina at the end? Go and find it yourself!

If the same situation happened in modern age, I guess the husband will definitely be hanged  by those women groups. It's no longer the time when men earn money and women do housework. Even a male as I can't agree with what P does in the story. That's not how things work these days. There shall be no more discrimination between both sex. When you girls are reading it, you may be pissed, just don't take it seriously. On the other hand, for boys reading it, never do the same thing on your girlfriend or your wife!