A Fury in the Words: Love and Embarrassment in Shakespeare’s Venice by Harry Berger Jr. (review)

Countering C. L. Barber’s view of “the beneficence of civilized wealth, the something-for-nothing which wealth gives to those who use it graciously,” Harry Berger proposes a concept of “negative usury” based on Marcel Mauss’s Gift and brought to bear on The Merchant of Venice at the outset in chapters 4 and 5, “Negative Usury and the Arts of Embarrassment” and “Negative Usury: Portia’s Ring Trick” (28–32). In Berger’s definition, “Negative usury as a strategy aims to embarrass the victims of donation by placing them under a moral debt they can’t easily pay off, much less shake off” (29). The paradox is that the play’s master strategist of negative usury was herself placed under such obligation by the will dictated by her deceased father yet she manages to “shake off” this imposition and gain near total control. By the play’s end, Portia’s exercise of power has methodically defeated the three principal male characters—Shylock, Antonio, and her husband Bassanio—one by one. However, in Berger’s keen interpretive lens, Portia is compromised by her apparent success. Even Portia cannot escape exposure to the embarrassment endemic in Venetian society, and Berger’s central focus concerns the role of her limitations in producing the problematic outcome.

Two key elements block a happy ending for Portia. First, Shylock’s departure from the court does not silence him because “the parodic charges that flash like lightning between Shylock and the other principals, between his direct and their devious negotiations with the modes of usury” (67–68) remain in effect during the play’s conclusion in Belmont. Casting “Shylock’s shadow over the closing conversations” calls attention to their “hollowness” and “uneasiness of tone” (72–73). Second, Berger’s demonstration of Bassanio’s “sleaziness” (42, 51n1) shows that he is no match for Portia. The result is a dysfunctional imbalance that makes her marriage a Pyrrhic victory, a nonstarter. Although Portia’s last word is “faithfully” (73), the foundation for marital faith has been eroded in advance by the prevailing acts of “bad faith” (12, 82). The final speech is awarded to Gratiano, who attempts a display of misogynistic assertiveness; the futility of this feeble gesture poses no threat to Portia’s authority. But the supposed humor sours the atmosphere for everyone, including Portia. Gratiano “leaves the taste of Venice in our mouths. … The taste of Venice is the taste of embarrassment” (83). As Berger’s summary implies, the general embarrassment extends to Portia’s marriage.

The great benefit of Berger’s juxtaposition of Merchant and Othello is to highlight the contrast between the Portia-Bassanio and Othello-Desdemona relationships. The emotional structure of the former couple is lopsided because one partner is virtually a nonentity, while the latter pair is animated by a mutuality in which both are equally strong. If Portia’s strength is indicated by the ease with which she creates “‘my vantage to exclaim on you [Bassanio]’” (30), Othello’s labored effort to entrap his wife by exclaiming when Desdemona cannot produce the handkerchief he gave her (29) backfires because she refuses to play the part in which he has cast her. Instead, she fights back and their shared struggle is what Berger’s sensitively detailed account brings out so beautifully. Unlike Portia, Othello has no chance of claiming superiority over his mate, a claim that Desdemona similarly refrains from making over him. One immediate interpretive consequence is that this approach prevents a reading of Desdemona’s development as a simple trajectory from initial bold assertiveness to rapid collapse into passivity. Rather, we learn through Berger’s meticulous analysis to hear the energy and spirit contained in her resistance as matching that of her stubborn husband. Like Othello’s, Desdemona’s temperament adheres to the stance: “‘I must be found. / My parts my...