"keeping safe Nerissa's ring" - that curious Act V

I am glad that I did not end up hating The Merchant of Venice. It is true that the Antisemitism acts as a huge turn off during the bulk of the play. However I liked the plot line that placed Portia in a strong place of real power. Portia proves herself in the brilliant turn around in the courtroom and puts Bassanio in his place. In my opinion, Bassanio deserves to be harangued by his wife - he is a shady character to begin with, and he did not prove a very loyal husband when put to the test (both by Portia, and out of his own mouth).

I thoroughly enjoyed watching him get told by his awesome wife. haha. And although Act V seems rather unnecessary, I liked the comic relief it provided with Bassanio and I am able to see how the audience would appreciate an ending with a man provided sex joke. This play was full of heavy material and even if the audience was able to laugh cruelly at Shylock the whole time, it was a somber moment to watch him walk off stage defeated and punished at the end of Act IV. No one wants a comedy to end so heavily. Watching Portia take control might have been comical but a little upsetting to a conventional patriarchal English audience of the time, so what better way to bring back the audience than to comfort them with masculine control in the form of a vagina joke?

huzzah.