Merchant of Venice Workbook Answers Act 1 Scene 2
Merchant of Venice Workbook Answers Act 1 Scene 2 Questions and Answers, Passage Based Questions.
Merchant of Venice Act 1 Scene 2 Workbook Questions and Answers
Question 1.
Who is Nerissa ? What does Portia tell her ? Why is she unhappy ?
Answer:
Nerissa is Portia’s companion. Portia’s words reveal that she is sick of her life and feels unhappy. She is sad because she is not free to choose her life partner. Her father has bound her future to the lottery of caskets designed by him.
Question 2.
Why does Nerissa not find fault with Portia’s father ?
Answer:
Nerissa does not find fault with Portia’s father who bound her future to the lottery of caskets. She feels that he must have got the right inspiration at the time of his death, and that the casket lottery designed by him would prove to be a sound one.
Question 3.
‘God made him and therefore let him pass for a man’. (Line : 51)
Who is being referred to by Portia ? In what tone is she talking of him ?
Answer:
Portia is referring to one of her suitors, the . French Lord, Monsieur Le Bon. She speaks about him in a sarcastic tone, saying that he is not a ‘proper’ man, though God has given him a human shape. According to her, he has no individuality of his own.
Merchant of Venice Workbook Answers Act 1 Scene 2 Passage Based Questions
PASSAGE 1.
Read the following extract and answer the questions that follow :
Portia :
By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world.
Nerissa :
You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are : and yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing.
It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean :
superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.
(i) Where are the speakers now ? Why is Portia sad and bored ?
Answer: The speakers are now in a room in Portia’s house. Portia is sad and bored because she is not happy to make a free choice in the matter of her life partner. She is bound to the lottery of caskets designed by her father.
(ii) Who is Nerissa ? Who are happy according to her ?
Answer: Nerissa is Portia’s maid. In reality, she is her trusted companion. According to her, only those persons are happy who are neither too rich nor too poor. Excessively rich people like Portia remain sad and bored.
(iii) What does Nerissa have in mind ? Do you agree with what she seems to suggest ?
Answer: While commenting on human nature, Nerissa has Portia in her mind. She thinks Portia is sad and bored because of her excessive riches, which is wrong. Portia is sad and worried thinking of her future.
(iv) How does Portia receive Nerissa’s speech ? What is Nerissa’s reaction ?
Answer: Portia receives Nerissa’s speech well. She appreciates her feelings and acknowledges the logic of what she has said. Nerissa thinks her thoughts should be better put into practice.
(v) What is the real reason of Portia’s sadness ?
Answer: The real reason of Portia’s sadness is that she wants to marry the person of her choice but she cannot. She cannot disobey the will of her late father who has designed the lottery of caskets for her marriage.
PASSAGE 2.
Read the following extract and answer the questions that follow :
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.
(i) Where are the speakers now ? What is the occasion ?
Answer: The speakers, Portia and Nerissa, are in a room in Portia’s house in Belmont. They are speaking as many suitors from different parts of the world have arrived to try their luck at the lottery of caskets.
(ii) What prompts Portia to react ? In which mood is she ?
Answer: When Nerissa says that her thoughts would be better and effective if they were put into practice, Portia retorts that it is easy to know what is good but very difficult to put it into practice. She is in a sad and sombre mood.
(iii) What does Portia say ? What comes in the way of happiness and prosperity ?
Answer: Portia says that to practise good is not as easy as to know what is good. Man often does not practise what he preaches. This is what comes in his way of happiness and prosperity.
(iv) To what is youth compared here ? What poetic device is used here ?
Answer: The youth is compared’ to a rash hare, which easily skips over snares and nets laid by wise old men, and invites troubles. The poetic device used here is metaphor.
(v) Who enters later in the scene ? What news is conveyed to Portia ?
Answer: A servant enters later in the scene. He conveys the news that four suitors are leaving without taking chance, while a new suitor, the Prince of Morocco, is coming soon to try his luck.