"Thou call'dst me a dog": Flexibility in the text

Small changes, big difference.
From Cracked.

I just went back and read through the original text again, and the thing that impressed me most was the flexibility of the text.

I've been looking up several interpretations of the text, most notably Anthony Heald's interpretation of the text, as well as (a summary of) the Nazi-edited script. In both cases, minor changes can drastically change the play.


The way I read the story (influenced by Heald's interpretation), Shylock is, in general, a pretty good guy. He hates Antonio, but decides to do him a favor by loaning him money (at personal risk, mind you), with the penalty of defaulting on the loan being the pound of flesh. However, despite Antonio's lack of ready cash, he's financially secure, so Shylock never anticipates collecting on the debt.

However, Shylock's daughter, Jessica, runs off with a Christian man; as she leaves, she robs Shylock of most of his fortune, including at least one deeply personal heirloom. Shylock feels profoundly betrayed, and Tubal (Shylock's own creditor) only exacerbates it by linking Jessica's betrayal to Antonio's recent financial failure. As a result of this conversation, Shylock becomes determined to destroy the man he hates: he will take out his anger and betrayal on the only man he can.

Like I said, small changes in the text can drastically change how we read Shylock. For example, Jessica says, several times, that she hates living with Shylock; nevertheless, she professes her love at least once. Deleting that one line leaves Shylock an irredeemably bad man, so evil that even his daughter doesn't love him.

An even more powerful scene is one in which Shylock justifies his legal right to Antonio's pound of flesh: in turn, the Christians appeal to Shylock's sense of mercy, while Shylock himself retaliates that this is a legal contract, and what business is it of theirs anyways. Again, changes in how this is staged can change the entire message of this scene: Minor inflections in the actor's voice, for example, could make Shylock sound completely reasonable or driven mad by anger. In the former case, we sympathize with him; in the latter, we sympathize with the Christians. The Nazis were very good at this kind of thing: minor changes in the script (including subtly altering many passages) portray Shylock as an evil, evil man--a conniving Jew that wants nothing more than to kill an honest Christian merchant.

I think I can work this kind of reasoning into my paper, but I need to sit down and figure out how.
Further reading on this topic. Be warned: bad spelling and language ahoy.