The Significance of the Volume of Utterance Allotted to the Characters in The Merchant of Venice: An Exploratory Analysis

This chapter aims to conduct a quantitative analysis of The Merchant of Venice by quantifying the amount of speech each character receives. The survey of word count shows that the four principal characters, Shylock, Portia, Antonio, and Bassanio are given roughly 11,520 words out of a total of 22,000 words, or 52.3%, of the whole dialogue in the play. These words are directly uttered by the four characters or indirectly by other characters commenting on them. The word count shows that Antonio, the Venetian merchant, is given only 1500 words in direct speech, while other characters utter 7,588 about him, for a total of 9,184 words in direct and indirect utterance. This clearly justifies the choice of the merchant of Venice as the title character is justified by this figure. The most important finding of the study is that Portia and Shylock have almost the same number of direct utterances and indirect utterances about them by others (i.e., 7, 232 words, and 7, 282 words, respectively). The study demonstrates that Shakespeare assigns these two characters an equity of loquaciousness and places them on an equal footing. He gives them equal linguistic space to express their cases and issues. Their identical volume of utterance becomes very significant as they end up in a decisive confrontation in the court over the life of Antonio. Whereas Shylock tries to destroy him, Portia tries to save him; the two serve as a destructive force and a constructive force, respectively. Furthermore, the victory of Portia in the court adds another side theme of gender success for women in this struggle, which is entertained by Portia's victory in this battle. Shakespeare also shows his cynicism about the potential of goodness in our world by assigning Portia to the utopian dream world of Belmont and Shylock to the real world of Venice. Furthermore, Shakespeare demonstrates cynicism about the possibility of benevolence in our world, as he allocates Shylock to the real world of Venice and Portia to the utopian dream world of Belmont. The methodology employed is to calculate all the words uttered by the characters and the words uttered by the characters about each other. Additionally, the study also provides a number of illustrative charts to clarify the statistical force of utterance.