Key Extracts & Exam Practice
GCSE English Literature exams typically ask you to analyse an extract from the play and then relate it to the whole text. This lesson provides four key passages, model analysis, and practice in writing PEE/PEAL paragraphs.
How the Extract Question Works
A typical GCSE question looks like this:
Starting with this extract, how does Shakespeare present [theme/character]?
Write about:
- how Shakespeare presents [theme/character] in this extract
- how Shakespeare presents [theme/character] in the play as a whole
You must:
- Analyse the language, form, and structure of the extract in detail.
- Use short, embedded quotations from the extract.
- Link to the rest of the play with further quotations and analysis.
- Consider Shakespeare's intentions and the effect on the audience.
Extract 1: Act 1, Scene 3 — The Bond Is Struck
Shylock: This kindness will I show.
Go with me to a notary, seal me there
Your single bond; and, in a merry sport,
If you repay me not on such a day,
In such a place, such sum or sums as are
Expressed in the condition, let the forfeit
Be nominated for an equal pound
Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken
In what part of your body pleaseth me.
Analysis
- "This kindness will I show" — deeply ironic. Shylock frames the lethal bond as an act of generosity.
- "A merry sport" — Shylock disguises the bond as a joke. This is appearance vs reality — what seems playful conceals deadly intent.
- "An equal pound / Of your fair flesh" — the legalistic precision ("equal pound") contrasts with the horror of what is described. "Fair" is ironic — Antonio's flesh is being commodified.
- "In what part of your body pleaseth me" — Shylock retains control. The phrase suggests cruelty and anticipation.
- Form: Shylock speaks in verse here, which is unusual — it reflects the formality and gravity of the legal bond.
Link to Whole Text
- This moment sets up the entire bond plot. Everything that follows depends on this agreement.
- The "merry sport" framing echoes the theme of appearance vs reality — the gold casket's "All that glisters is not gold."
- Shylock's hidden intent mirrors Portia's later disguise — both characters use deception to achieve their goals.
- In the trial (4.1), Shylock will insist on the exact terms of this bond — "I stand here for law."
Extract 2: Act 3, Scene 1 — "Hath Not a Jew Eyes?"
Shylock: He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
Analysis
- Prose, not verse — Shylock's most passionate speech is in prose, giving it a raw, unpolished, direct quality.
- Cumulative list: "laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation" — the parallel structure builds a devastating catalogue of abuse.
- "And what's his reason? I am a Jew" — the simplest and most damning statement in the play. All of Antonio's cruelty reduces to pure prejudice.
- Rhetorical questions: "Hath not a Jew eyes?" — impossible to disagree with. Shakespeare forces the audience to acknowledge Jewish humanity.
- The pivot: "And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" — the argument shifts from equality to vengeance. Shylock uses the Christians' own logic against them.
- "The villainy you teach me I will execute" (continuation) — Shylock is a product of Christian cruelty.
Link to Whole Text
- This speech is the emotional heart of the play. It complicates any reading of Shylock as a simple villain.
- It connects to the forced conversion in Act 4 — the Christians' cruelty continues even after Shylock's most powerful plea.
- The speech's argument for common humanity contrasts with Portia's racial comment about Morocco.
- It provides context for Shylock's behaviour in the trial — he has been driven to extremity.
Extract 3: Act 4, Scene 1 — The Trial / Quality of Mercy
Portia: The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The thronèd monarch better than his crown.
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.
Analysis
- "Not strained" — mercy cannot be forced or constrained. It must be given freely.
- "Droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven" — a simile comparing mercy to natural rain. It is a gift from God, natural and gentle.
- "Twice blest" — mercy benefits both parties. This is a key theological point.
- "'Tis mightiest in the mightiest" — paradox: true power lies in showing mercy, not exercising force.
- "An attribute to God himself" — mercy is divine. To show mercy is to be godlike.
- "When mercy seasons justice" — the ideal is not mercy instead of justice, but mercy tempering justice.
- Blank verse: The speech is in sustained, eloquent iambic pentameter — formal, elevated, persuasive.
Link to Whole Text
- Irony: Portia preaches mercy but shows none. Shylock's forced conversion contradicts everything this speech says.
- Antonio's "mercy" (forced conversion) is the opposite of what Portia describes — it is neither gentle nor freely given.
- The speech connects to the play's religious themes — Christians claim mercy as their virtue but fail to embody it.
- Structurally, the speech is the calm before the storm — after Shylock refuses, Portia springs her legal trap.
Extract 4: Act 5, Scene 1 — Belmont Resolution
Lorenzo: How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears. Soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patens of bright gold.
Analysis
- "How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!" — personification: moonlight "sleeps," creating a peaceful, dreamlike atmosphere.
- "Let the sounds of music / Creep in our ears" — synaesthesia and gentle verbs create a sensory, soothing mood.
- "Soft stillness and the night" — sibilance (repeated "s" sounds) reinforces the quietness.
- "The floor of heaven / Is thick inlaid with patens of bright gold" — a beautiful image of the night sky as a golden ceiling. But "gold" is an ironic word in this play — "All that glisters is not gold."
- "Patens" = communion plates — religious imagery again, linking Belmont to a kind of sacred harmony.
Link to Whole Text
- Act 5 establishes Belmont as a place of beauty and harmony — the opposite of Venice's courtroom.
- But this peace is built on Shylock's destruction — Lorenzo and Jessica are here because Jessica stole from her father and Shylock was ruined.
- Jessica's response is telling: "I am never merry when I hear sweet music" — she does not share in the harmony.
- The gold imagery links back to the casket test and the theme of appearance vs reality.
How to Write a PEE/PEAL Paragraph
P — Point (your argument)
E — Evidence (a quotation)
E/A — Explain / Analyse (what the language does and means)
L — Link (to the question, themes, rest of the play, context)
Model Paragraph
Question: How does Shakespeare present Shylock as a victim?
Shakespeare presents Shylock as a victim of relentless prejudice through his powerful "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech in Act 3, Scene 1. Shylock uses a series of rhetorical questions — "Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses?" — to force his listeners (and the audience) to acknowledge that Jews share the same humanity as Christians. The cumulative listing technique creates an overwhelming sense of injustice: Shylock catalogues every abuse Antonio has inflicted — "laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation" — building to the devastating conclusion, "And what's his reason? I am a Jew." The simplicity of this statement is its power: all of Antonio's cruelty is motivated by nothing more than prejudice. Shakespeare is challenging his Elizabethan audience, who would have expected a Jewish villain, to see Shylock as a human being. This speech complicates the entire play — if Shylock is a victim driven to revenge by Christian cruelty, then the trial's outcome (forced conversion, loss of wealth and identity) is not justice but further persecution.
Summary