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:
“Thus we may define the real as that whose characters are independent of what anybody may think them to be.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“The business of a novelist is, in my opinion, to create characters first and foremost, and then to set them in the snarl of the human currents of his time, so that there results an accurate permanent record of a phase of human history.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)