It is often observed that William Shakespeare's plays feature some uncomfortable scenes that leave the audience unsure whether the characters are participating in a harmless theatrical farce or a meaner kind of teasing that borders on cruel. Such scenes involve a deception that seems funny enough on the surface but, upon closer examination of the prankster's motives, can slowly replace the reader's easy smile with a look of puzzlement and concern. In Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, the play's protagonist is no stranger to the kind of jokes that seem to take things too far. During the second half of the opera, Portia orchestrates a prank to get the better of her future husband Bassanio, with the somewhat troubling effect mentioned above. In Portia's case, however, the trick was not performed with depraved intentions, but with the goal of asserting dominance over her potential husband. Although Portia appears to love Bassanio, he represents a threat both to her autonomy and to her control over her deceased father's estates and wealth. To maintain her power, Portia uses the ring trick to position herself above Bassanio, belittling him by questioning and attacking his faithfulness, sexual dominance, and masculinity before finally revealing that it was all done in jest. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Portia's first move in her campaign for dominion over Bassanio calls her loyalty into question. After learning that Bassanio had given his ring to the "civil doctor" who defended the men in the case against Shylock, Portia immediately denounces her future husband, calling his "false heart of truth" as empty as his ring finger (V.1.189 ). Although the lady immediately invokes the threat of refusing to lie with Bassanio until the ring is found, it is only later in her speech that she fully uses sex as a weapon to subdue her man. Portia focuses first on Bassanio's lack of loyalty, turning her apology against him in a mocking parallel form. When Bassanio tries to explain: If you knew to whom I gave the ring, If you knew to whom I gave the ring, And you would conceive for what I gave the ring, And how reluctantly I left the ring (193-196 ) Portia responds accordingly, matching each justification with a harsh rebuttal: If you had known the virtue of the ring, or half of its value that the ring gave you, or your honor of containing the ring, then you would not you would be separated from the ring. ring (199-202). Portia never takes Bassanio's defenses into consideration; despite knowing they are true, she chose to reject them in order to reduce her boyfriend to a more manageable form. He emphasizes the importance of the ring, its value, and the honor bestowed on Bassanio as the ring bearer before stating that he has sullied them all by giving up his precious gift. Portia makes clear her implication that it should mean nothing to Bassanio if he gave away his ring, a betrayal that she says would not have occurred if he "had defended it / With any term of zeal" (203-204). Here the irony and condescension drip from Portia's verses. Eventually, Portia begins to seriously shift the sex from her stratagems to the forefront, claiming that Bassanio must have given the ring to another woman. By portraying Bassanio as an unfaithful lover who has committed a serious breach of trust, Portia puts Bassanio on the defensive. Her plan to make Bassanio lose the ring creates a situation where Portia has the power and the wronged fiancé must try to make amends. Portia, however, does nothe will grant no mercy nor expose his prank without first completely belittling Bassanio. When she once again attempts to convince Portia that she gave her ring to the “worthy doctor” and not to another woman, Portia challenges Bassanio's sexual dominance over her (222). Because she has so carelessly given away her ring to the civilian doctor, Portia says that she “will become as liberal as” her fiancé with what she possesses through the contractual exchange of marriage: her body (226). She promises that she will sleep with this worthy doctor if she gets the slightest chance. While Portia reclaims her sexuality in this scene, she transforms it into a sort of commodity, with a price equal to that of the ring that Bassanio gave in payment to the doctor. However, he does not fail to point out how this would affect Bassanio. She implies how sleeping with the doctor would emasculate Bassanio and usurp his right to Portia's body when she says that she will not deny the doctor either her “body or [her] husband's bed” (228). In the patriarchal system in which these characters operate, the wife is seen as the husband's property. Portia allowing another man to enter the marital bed would be a serious blow not only to Bassanio's masculinity and pride, but also to his rightful ownership of the property he entered into through the marriage ceremony (Portia). His entire speech here reads like a challenge, as he taunts Bassanio with promises like “I will know him, I am very sure of it” and warnings like “…look at me like Argus,” a mythical figure with a hundred eyes (229). -230). This demonstration of her ability to deflate Bassanio's power through extramarital sex is another step in Portia's plan to win over her future husband. Portia has shifted her strategy from focusing on Bassanio's mistakes and deploring his character, to fully exercising the power she is gaining over her fiancé. Ironically, it is by forgiving Bassanio that Portia hurts him the most. After the endless apologies from Bassanio who promises never to break the oath he made to his love again, Portia seems to give in. He accepts Bassanio's regrets and Antonio's role as guarantor, before giving him the very ring he had given. When an astonished Bassanio realizes that "it is the same ring that [he] gave to the doctor," Portia speaks, not with the intention of explaining the confusion, but to perform her final act of power (257). In a line that resonates with artificial regret and almost offensive nonchalance, Portia says, “…Forgive me, Bassanio, / For by this ring the doctor lay with me” (258-259). This prank is by far Portia's cruelest. It is true that the audience knows that the doctor does not exist and that Portia has remained faithful to Bassanio, which gives the scene a touch of comedy and dramatic irony. Bassanio, however, has the impression that the woman he is about to marry has slept with another man. By pretending to have cuckolded Bassanio to get the ring back, Portia manages to assert total dominance over her fiancé. In Shakespeare's time (and probably today), having a cheating wife was the ultimate form of emasculation. The cuckold nature directs shame, ridicule, and perhaps even blame onto the man in the relationship, since he is supposed to control his wife. Bassanio is further diminished by this trick as it implies that if he hadn't lost the ring in the first place, Portia wouldn't have had to sleep with the doctor. Unfortunately, the audience never gets to hear a reaction from Bassanio, as Graziano interrupts this power play of humiliation and deception with the line, "What, are we cuckolded before we deserve it?" (265). This observation, which comically indicates that husbands are used to pushing their wives into infidelity, marks a return to light-heartedness and normality..