Merchant Of Venice :: Free Merchant of Venice Essays

The Storytellers in The Merchant of Venice     In this play dickens characters have a bigger role than angiotensin-converting enzyme might imagine. Salerio and Solanio atomic number 18 the storytellers in The Merchant of Venice. They fill in important information that the auditory sense needs to full understand the play.      First, the deuce names differ by only a few letters, they are so close that champion might confuse the two and think that they are the identical person. I feel that this is Shakespeares intention in this play. He makes the two similar so that they are non very important to the diagram of the play. At the same time they are two different people, not just a narrator. I feel that Shakespeare does this so that he can have the two characters speaking to each other. It is through their, Salerio and Solanio, interactions that the hearing learns important information to the plot of the play.     At th e opening of the play three characters are on stage, Antonio, Salerio, and Solanio. through the dialogue, Salerio informs the earshot of Antonios enchants "Your mind is tossing on the ocean/There where your argosies i.e., great merchandiser ships with portly i.e., stately sail (I.i. 8-9). While in the same scene Solanio helps the audience establish that Antonio has no major love interest "Why hence you are in love," to which Antonio replies, "Fie, fie" (I.i. 46-47). Through their conversations, the two have given the audience a basis for the play that Antonio is a merchant and that he is not concerned about being in love.      An entire scene (viii) in Act II is given completely to a conversation in the midst of Solanio and Salerio. Here they tell of many events that have happened Bassanios ship setting transfer and Gratiano going with him Shylocks reaction to Jessica and his ducats being gone a Venetian ship that is wrecked in the Eng lish Channel and also the parting mingled with Antonio and Bassanio. Here, through the conversation of Solanio and Salerio the audience is told what has happened. Thus they have only one way to obtain the information. They all have the same thoughts about what has happened since they did not see the scenes and were only told about them.      Solanio and Salerio are the storytellers in the play unless they are only used for about two thirds of the play. The scene that every one of them is in is scene ii of Act III.