Skip to main content

How do you go about answering a "How Would The Audience Feel" question?

That's a little tough to answer since your subjective experience of the play will change the way how you think the audience would feel. However, I'll give you my opinion based on my own take on the play, and hopefully that will give you some inspiration to write your own answer. For my part, I would answer a "How Would the Audience Feel" question by saying that the audience would probably feel conflicted emotions in regards to the happy conclusion of Bassanio and Antonio's plot and the sad conclusion of Shylock's plot. 


Antonio and Bassanio are undeniably supposed to be the main characters in the play, as most of the main action revolves around their storylines. As such, we naturally want to see their stories end happily. However, though Antonio and Bassanio get what they want by the end of the play, their happy ending comes at the expense of Shylock the Jewish moneylender. Now, Shylock is usually seen as the villain of the play, as he basically wants to murder Antonio. However, Shylock also becomes a sympathetic character, as his anger is a result of the way his Christian neighbors, including Bassanio and Antonio, mistreat him. Thus, when Shylock is stripped of his dignity in court and essentially humiliated, it's hard to avoid empathizing with him. In that case, though the audience would probably feel a sense of happiness for Antonio and Bassanio, most members of the audience would also probably feel sorry for Shylock. This conflicted emotion that the play evokes is one of the many reasons the play has endured such lasting attention, both from scholars and audiences. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.