Characters
- Antonio – a merchant of Venice
- Bassanio – Antonio's friend, in love with Portia; suitor likewise to her
- Gratiano, Solanio, Salarino, Salerio – friends of Antonio and Bassanio
- Lorenzo – friend of Antonio and Bassanio, in love with Jessica
- Portia – a rich heiress
- Nerissa – Portia's waiting maid- in love with Gratiano
- Balthazar – Portia's disguise as a lawyer
- Stephano – Nerissa's disguise as Balthazar's law clerk.
- Shylock – a rich Jew, moneylender, father of Jessica
- Tubal – a Jew; Shylock's friend
- Jessica – daughter of Shylock, in love with Lorenzo
- Launcelot Gobbo – a foolish man in the service of Shylock
- Old Gobbo – father of Launcelot
- Leonardo – servant to Bassanio
- Duke of Venice – Venetian authority who presides over the case of Shylock's bond
- Prince of Morocco – suitor to Portia
- Prince of Arragon – suitor to Portia
- Magnificoes of Venice, officers of the Court of Justice, Gaoler, servants to Portia, and other Attendants
Read more about this topic: The Merchant Of Venice
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“For our vanity is such that we hold our own characters immutable, and we are slow to acknowledge that they have changed, even for the better.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“No one of the characters in my novels has originated, so far as I know, in real life. If anything, the contrary was the case: persons playing a part in my life—the first twenty years of it—had about them something semi-fictitious.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“Of the other characters in the book there is, likewise, little to say. The most endearing one is obviously the old Captain Maksim Maksimich, stolid, gruff, naively poetical, matter-of- fact, simple-hearted, and completely neurotic.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)