ABSTRACT
In Act 4, Shylock pauses while holding the knife to extract the pound of flesh from Antonio. This chapter reads that pause as the moment of Shylock’s potential epiphany. Shylock realizes that he cannot take his “just” reward because his “sacrifice” is plain dirty, and his God is seemingly not showing up for him as expected. Shylock experiences a traumatic break in the biblical covenant and a moment of transcendence caused by the related shock. Shylock’s collapse here, I claim, affords him an image—a potential epiphany—of the revelation for which he yearns. Shylock projects a path of spiritual desire towards revelation that is frustrated but that leaves a trace of what fulfillment might be. Finally, the non-specificity of a new ‘deed’—that of Lorenzo and Jessica’s inheritance—possibly indicates that Shylock, even if victimized by the Christian community and out of sight and off the stage for the remainder of the play, is a required future signatory of a larger expansive agreement. This agreement points to Shylock’s involvement in something more, something new and even covenantal, a continual creation of the ‘gift’, even at his future death.
