Chapter 67
On Monday morning, Ron began class by drawing a cross on the board and dividing it, not by yes and no as was his normal way, but with the words ‘love and justice. He did not look at the side board although he knew that there were many comments there. While some students took the weekends off, Ron had learned that his were very diligent at accomplishing their lessons over the weekend. They had confided to him that in many instances that they were not allowed to go out and that they could get out of doing housework by claiming that they had school work which needed to be finished.
“Would you prefer to live in a world that is governed by love or a world that was governed by justice?” he asked.
Ron almost fully expected that the girls would almost unanimously vote for a world where love was in charge and was at a loss to explain when the vote came back evenly split between the two choices. He looked at them very thoughtfully. He circled the group that had voted for justice. “Then you believe that Shylock was treated fairly?”
Donna’s hand shot up like a bolt. Before he could even acknowledge her, she said, “That wasn’t justice! That was prejudice!”
Ron smiled. “What do you mean?”
“Well the judge does not even try to hide the fact that he hates Shylock.”
“That’s true,” said Ron. “But is he impartial?”
“He claims to be but that is a joke. He was looking for any way to overturn the bond.”
“Doesn’t Shylock demand the ‘letter of the law’ and isn’t that what he gets?”
“Yes, but isn’t the purpose of the law to help everyone to be treated fairly?”
“Is it?” said Ron.
“It should be!” countered Donna.
Ron nodded. “You are correct. It should be. I want you to think about your history classes for a moment.” The girls groaned and Ron was shocked at the reaction. “What?”
Elena said, “History is no fun, Mr. Tuck.” She looked at him with her eyes twinkling in the secret that the two of them now shared.
“Haven’t our laws always been a reflection of our prejudices?”
The girls were silent. Elizabeth who had also voted for justice said, “Then there is nothing to trust except love. Is that what you are saying?”
“No,” answered Ron. “Love does not even attempt to be fair. We treat those that we love much differently than we treat anyone else.”
“So what’s the right answer?”
“You tell me,” said Ron. “It’s there. It’s right in the pages.”
Veronica smiled broadly and put her hand up. “The mercy speech by Portia.”
Ron smiled and said, “Let’s look at it together.” Ron read the speech as the girls followed along. He read it slowly. He reread the words, “… in the course of justice, none of us shall see salvation…”
Ron paused to let the words sink in. Then he said, “Why doesn’t Shylock take three times the amount of money that is due him?”
Paula Sandal said, “Because he hates them and he wants to get back at them.”
Ron nodded. “Why else?”
Judith said, “Because of his daughter.”
Ron nodded again. “Why else?” He felt uneasy about saying this because those were the two reasons that he wanted. Sometimes he would push beyond what he expected them or him to know and had this kind of blind faith in the power of the classroom to provide an answer. Victoria didn’t make him wait long.
“He is sticking up for all the Jews.”
Ron smiled. He had not thought of Shylock as seeing himself as a standard bearer but there it was and it seemed to ring true.
Elena said, “Do you think that Shakespeare secretly liked Jews, Mr. Tuck?”
“What I think is that Shakespeare, in his writing, wanted us all to treat each other better. But let me ask you this. How would Shylock know what mercy looked like or felt like? Had anyone shown him mercy? If you were trying to leave this room and every time that you almost got out, I swung down and kicked you in the teeth and knocked you back into the room, wouldn’t you want to beat the hell out of me if you finally did get out?”
Elena said, “So, Portia is asking Shylock to give something that he has never been given.”
“So why does she do that?” said Ron.
Paula said, “Because she wants him to be better.”
Paula had just started volunteering answers and the last thing that Ron wanted to do was to shut her down.
“That is partially true. Why else?”
Donna’s face lit up. She pointed to the love side of the vote. “Because she is in love with Bassanio and wants to get Antonio off.”
Ron was having trouble containing his smile. “Do you think that she really cares about Shylock at all?”
There was a soft chorus of “no” in the room.
Ron returned to the board and looked out at them. In this space he felt that somehow he was inside of the play, moving in it like an observer, almost like a director. He drew another cross. “Does Shylock get what he deserves?”
The vote was swift. There were fifteen who said yes and seven who said no. Ron circled the minority and walked away from the board without saying anything. They knew what it meant.
Veronica said, “He should be punished for what he has done, but they don’t leave him with anything, not even his friends or his religion.”
“That’s true,” said Ron. “If he becomes a Christian, his fellow Jews will think of him as dead.”
“I want to change my vote,” said Judith.
“Ok,” said Ron. “Why?”
“Cause if I don’t, I won’t be any better than they are.”
Other girls said, “I want to change my vote too.”
Ron grinned at Judith. “See you are a real trendsetter.”
She beamed.
“But that doesn’t make Shylock any better of a person, does it? And Shakespeare leaves him this way. In some ways what Shakespeare is saying in his own Christianity is that Shylock had a shot at redemption and turned it down, which is why a lot of critics have said that Antonio is like a Christ figure in the play. You may want to write that down.” Dutifully the girls wrote.
Ron went back to the chalkboard and said, “OK, let’s switch gears here.” He circled those who had voted for the world governed by love. “What happens in the courtroom between Bassanio and Portia?”
Samantha said, “He digs himself into a really deep hole.”
“Why?”
Samantha gave him that look that again displayed disbelief at his inability to understand. “He gives away his ring!”
Ron grinned. “So?”
“Has a girl that you loved ever given you a ring?” said Samantha.
Ron looked down at his finger. There was silver ring with Minnesota jasper in it on the third finger of his left hand. Robin had given it to him when he first moved to Minneapolis, before he knew that she was sleeping with her cousin, before things had gotten really crazy. He dutifully wore the ring every day. He thought of her each time that he slipped it on his finger. “This one,” he said holding up the finger.
“How would she feel if you gave it away to another woman?” said Samantha.
Ron felt his eyes fill up instantly. He fought the reaction. Not here! Not in front of his students. The girls saw his face and the room became very quiet. Ron tried to smile and he shrugged. “I doubt that she would care very much anymore,” he said. The room was very quiet. The floor creaked as Ron moved across it. “But she also would probably not try to trick me into giving it away.” He was trying to get it back, trying to will his mind away from that place and back to his students. He felt himself close a door. For a moment, he heard laughter across the hall. It made him flinch. “OK,” he said. “Now the first thing that Bassanio does is to tell Portia, who he does not know is Portia, that he would give her up if that would help to get Antonio off the hook for the pound of flesh.” Ron read the passage. “The next thing that he does, and Portia has already said that she was going to leave at this point, is to keep asking her if there is anything that he can give her. And that puts it in her head to ask for the ring.”
“Yup,” said Donna. “He’s a dope.”
“Well,” said Ron, “he is not as smart as she is.”
“That’s an understatement,” said Donna. “But I have a question. How could he not know who she was?”
“Because the court was a man’s world and he would never have guessed that a woman could conduct herself in there the way that Portia did.”
“Yup ,” said Elena. “A real dope.”
The bell rang. The class groaned. Ron smiled. “Act 5 is very short so it’s almost like you have a free night, but remember as soon as we finish the play, we have the test.”