There is no specific character entitled the ôfoolö in ShakespeareÆs The Merchant of Venice, but the concept of the fool is important throughout the context of the play. At various instances in the play, we see a variety of characters play the fool or refer to themselves as ôfoolö. This is true with respect to Arragon, Gratiano, Launcelot Gobbo, Portia, Bassanio, Nerissa and Shylock. All of these characters at times play the fool, try to fool others, and/or are fooled by others. The concept of the fool is extremely important to the main themes of the play, justice, love, and greed. The concept of the fool is highly significant to the play because Shylock is fooled in his defense of himself through a legal flaw for which he does not account.
In The Merchant of Venice, only Launcelot Gobbo is labeled a clown. Gobbo is ShylockÆs servant who informs his blind father, Old Gobbo, that he wants to leave Shylock and work for Bassanio. Gobbo acts as comic relief in the play, a character that is particularly skilled at uttering puns, ôThere will come a Christian by / Will be worth a JewessÆ eyeö (Shakespeare 211). Gobbo is important because as the fool he is able to utter expressions others in the play would not so readily get away with saying in public. He also symbolizes the duality within the play between justice and injustice, Christianity and Judaism, and love and infidelity. He does so by working as the fool/servant for both the Jewish Shylock and the Christian Bassanio, much in the same was as there are elements of crossover shared between justice and injustice, Christianity and Judaism, and love and infidelity.
In other words, the foolÆs duality in the play symbolizes the fact that we do not exist in a black and white realm with clear-cut and unambiguous definitions of such complex concepts as religion, justice, and love. However, Launcelot Gobbo is not the only fool in the play, merely the only one labeled ...