Character knowledge ~ Portia
personality and character overview
Portia serves as the most heavily featured/ main female character of the Merchant of Venice. She's a gorgeous, wealthy, intelligent woman.
Portia seems to be the epitome of a perfect female character, she’s gorgeous beyond belief, which many people seem to take her at face value for, only noting her beauty when talking about her “all the world desires her. From the four corners of the earth they come to kiss the shrine, this mortal breathing saint.” - a quote from the prince of Morocco, who is one of the first suitors who attempts the coffin selection ritual to attempt to win her hand in marriage. It doesn’t take an english buff to understand that in this quote he’s calling her extremely desirable, comparing her to a saint on earth, a shrine of a woman, perfect. In reality, her character has so much more depth, mainly in terms of how smart she is, disguising as a man to defend her husband-to-be’s best friend in court and finding a rule tucked away in the Venetian law which sways the case entirely in her favor, she alone outsmarts Shylock and lets Antonio get away unharmed.
Portia's development and changes
how she changed (or didn't really change) throughout the play
Portia's development, or lack of development as the story progresses.
Portia changes in interesting ways, she goes through a character development which is majorly self empowering with her whole lawyer arc, before she reverts back into the character she was before. I’d like to call this a character circle rather than a character arc of sorts. We see her develop from a reserved woman whose only purpose is to become a wife into a lawyer, a smart, witty, successful, independent lawyer. She develops into her own person- defying what was socially expected of her to save a friend. After this high point of character independence, her character free falls down back into a wife, we see no development branch from this trial scene, her brightness and obvious skill go nowhere, ending in an unsatisfying, typical character ending for a woman, finishing in the finale as Bassanio's wife, seemingly nothing more.
