Character sketch of portia in merchant of venice

Portia is the heroine in the story The Merchant of Venice authored by William Shakespeare. She is a rich heiress who is also beautiful and intelligent at the same time. These traits are portrayed at several instances throughout the story. She is bound by her father’s will to marry the person who chooses the right casket from three of them made of gold, silver and lead.

The readers get an idea of her beauty from Bassanio who cannot stop talking enough about it. One instance where she shows her intelligence is when Bassanio comes to try his luck in choosing the right casket. Unknown to him, she has also fallen in love with him like he has for her. However, she is not allowed to reveal this to him. Instead, she suggests that he take a day or two to think over which the right casket is. This is because he has only one chance, and if he fails in this, they will lose each other forever.

Portia’s graciousness is shown through her tact and sympathy. She talks ladylike and gives all due respect to her earlier prospective suitors – the Princes of Morocco and Arragon. But, once they leave, she does not hesitate to immediately voice her opinions about them to her trusted servant Nerissa. She calls them fools and considers them to be greedy and self-centered who are more interested in the fortune that her father has left her. She understands this from the way they choose the gold and silver caskets without even caring about their plain lead counterpart.   

She is also depicted as a person who is very generous. Within a few days of their marriage, Bassanio receives the news of Antonio’s downfall and Shylock taking him to court. Although she finds it difficult to let her husband go, Portia knows that it is more important for Bassanio to be by his friend’s side at that point of time. Not only does she ask him to leave immediately, but she also asks him to take some of her fortune with him to bail Antonio out.

Another example to show that Portia is quick witted is her performance in the courtroom where she appears as a lawyer for Antonio, Bassanio’s good friend. Antonio had pledged his life to the moneylender Shylock to raise money for Bassanio to go and try his luck in winning Portia’s hand. Even Bassanio did not recognize his wife in court. While Portia talks about mercy to the moneylender, she also agreed that it was only fair that Shylock took a pound of flesh from Antonio’s body as his payment per the agreement. However, she challenged him to do so without shedding a single drop of blood as the agreement did not allow for Antonio to lose blood. Portia easily wins the case using the exact law terms without having any legal training or prior experience as a lawyer.