Abstract 

William Shakespeare is the most famous name in English literature with timeless themes that capture the depth of human emotions. His works are rich with multi-dimensional characters that have become a source for analysis and criticism for most researchers, playwrights, and students of English literature throughout time. The primary source in this essay is one of his most controversial comedies that has a profound impact on the comedy genre with its themes that explore human nature, and that is The Merchant of Venice (1596-1597). The Merchant of Venice has been a valuable treasure for analysis with the different themes it tackles. However, this essay analyzes how themes of women´s emancipation and of discrimination against those who have been seen as outsiders are portrayed, and how they overlap in the play through the close reading and the analysis of the two female characters Portia and Jessica. Additionally, the essay explores how the different portrayal of these two characters uncovers a sense of discrimination based on religious perspective. Furthermore, the essay analyzes the inconsistency in Portia’s character where her prejudice against the outsiders, here Shylock and Morocco, and herself being discriminated against by the patriarchal society’s convictions overlap in a way that turns the suppressed into the suppressor. The juxtaposing of these forms of marginalization based on religion, gender, and race makes them interconnected in a way that mirrors the ideologies that dominated Elizabethan society during that time.