"Ellen Schoeters is a member of Actorama + where actors can upload a monologue or scene performance for peer review. What do you think of Ellen Schoeters's performance?"
(0 votes)
| Character | Portia | |
|---|---|---|
| Gender | Female | |
| Age Range(s) | Young Adult (20-35) | |
| Type of monologue / Character is | Depressed, Lamenting, Frustrated | |
| Type | Dramatic | |
| Period | Renaissance | |
| Genre | Comedy | |
| Description | Portia expresses her unhappiness | |
| Location | ACT I, Scene 2 | |
Summary
Bassanio, a gentleman from Venice, asks his kinsman and friend Antonio, a Venitian merchant, for a loan so that he can court Portia, a woman from Belmont he has fallen in love with. Antonio can't lend him the money since all he has is tied up in investments so he suggests Bassanio to visit Shylock, a Jewish moneylender.
In Belmont Portia expresses her frustrations to her friend Nerissa. She is unhappy since she can't select a husband for herself. Her father has decided to make her suitors select between three chests. Only one contains Portia's portrait and the suitor that picks the right chest will have Portia's hand in marriage. In this monologue, in ACT I, Scene 2, Portia expresses her frustrations for not being able to choose a husband.
In Belmont Portia expresses her frustrations to her friend Nerissa. She is unhappy since she can't select a husband for herself. Her father has decided to make her suitors select between three chests. Only one contains Portia's portrait and the suitor that picks the right chest will have Portia's hand in marriage. In this monologue, in ACT I, Scene 2, Portia expresses her frustrations for not being able to choose a husband.
Written by Administrator
| Excerpt |
|---|
| PORTIA If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree: such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to choose me a husband. O me, the word 'choose!' I may neither choose whom I would nor refuse whom I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one nor refuse none? |
