No creative title ever

Aww no class today? That's alright I'm still not feeling well so it may be good for me. Anyway what to right about? For right now I'm going to write about something that we're not reading. I'll loosely stay on topic by saying that I'm writing about other books with sympathetic villains, because when you get right down to it, Shylock is sympathetic in some ways (when you don't pay attention to the whole pound o' flesh thing).

In my free time I'm reading Special Topics in Calamity Physics byMarisha Pessl. It's a surrisingle long book and I've been working on it slowly for a month or so now. But as far as i am into the plot, there are no villains, only negative characters. These negative characters are more or less the cool clique in the private high school the protagonist has just arrived at for her senior year. These people hang out with the enigmatic film teacher Ms. Hannah Schneider. They go over to her house for dinner and discuss topics from the meaning of life to how they are doing in classes. Schneider pushes Blue (said protagonist) into this exclusive group for unknown reasons and she has to deal with being the odd one out in this narrow minded clique.

The students are all assholes to her basically. I know this sounds like teenage high school schlock but it's a very intriguing book so stick with me. So now Blue is wondering why she's forced to intrude on this closed circle and why she has to be the center of attention when she likes to imagine herself as a Jane Goodall character, observing the pointless drama of high school life. Meanwhile Schneider's motives remain a mystery, as the only people she keeps in contact with ever are these six high school seniors. Eventually we find out that each of the "Blue Bloods" as they are called has some kind of tragedy in their past which has made them the condescending asshole they are now.

This entry isn't nearly as good as I thought it would be and makes the excellent book I'm reading sound quite drab. Maybe I'll try again later.

Second Class Citizen

So yeah I said in class today that the most disturbing part of The Merchant of Venice for me (and there aren't many disturbing parts so it was easy to pick) was at the very end when Portia saves Anotonio through an agonizingly literal run through of the contract. After Portia explains that Shylock must take exactly a pound of flesh, without drawing blood or killing Antonio, Shylock backs off and it seems that everything is okay. But then Portia takes it one step further by saying that through the contract, Shylock indirectly meant to take the life of a Venetian, which is an offense so severe that Shylock must forfeit everything he has, half to Antonio and half to Venice. Here tha language is very odd. Portia says: "It is enacted in the laws of Venice, / If it be proved against an alien / That by direct or indirect attempts / He seek the life of any citizen ... the offender's life lies in the mercy / of the Duke." This is the law, right? And it makes sense, because Venice is protecting its citizens from foreigners who would try to kill them. A just law.

My problem with this law is more in its use here. Shylock is not an "alien". We can safely assume that he is Venetian, being that he lives there and has set up a very nice establishment for himself there. So this law guarding against foreigners is being unjustly used against a citizen of the city for entering a contract in which a Christian would presumable give up his life. The antisemitism doesn't surprise me, as the entire play bashes Jews. It's the idea that the religion is the primary identifier of Shylock. His Jewishness is more important to the others than his...Venetian...ness. He who is a fellow countryman is now given up. And all of this isn't so ridiculous in the context of the play so now I'm just trying to voice what my problem is.

I guess most of all it's that they label him an "alien." That just seems really wrong given that he is a Venetian whether Jewish or Christian.