Nerissa believes that Portia’s father is a wise man, and whoever chooses the right chest will be the man to have Portia. Portia’s marriage life is dictated by her dead father. He may be dead, but his will of getting Portia married and the conditions he sets forth constraints and manipulates Portia’s life from his very own grave. Portia has no agency. Her father makes Portia an object, the treasure. Portia respects her father and doesn’t do against his will. She cannot object to her father because, in the society she lives in, the man’s orders are expected to be followed. Portia seems like she’s obeying her father, but her cleverness overrules this system when later on she manipulates the conditions set by her father to align with her own will.
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The word “fancy” means desires, attraction and in the song there is a question being asked of whether attraction comes from the heart or the head. “It is engineered in the eye” answers the question which means that attraction comes from looking. “While gazing fed, and fancy dies” means that attraction is fed and grows when someone is looking, and then it dies at the end when not being looked at. Portia is basically cheating because she tries to hint at Bassanio not to choose exterior beauty since beauty is only temporary. She’s trying to tell Bassanio not to choose the gold casket. Also in this song the biggest hint comes from the words “bred,” “head,” “nourished,” which all rhyme with lead -- the correct casket in which Portia is “locked in.” Bassanio receives the message and eventually chooses the right casket and wins Portia. Portia cheating shows her first initial step to break away from being kept in chains of the will of her father. At first her admitting to being the object may seem like her giving into the system, but she does this only to fool Bassanio into thinking that he is superior. It may seem like Bassanio has won, but in the end the real winner is Portia. Portia gets what she wants; she marries the suitor she wants and she does this through means of
The word “fancy” means desires, attraction and in the song there is a question being asked of whether attraction comes from the heart or the head. “It is engineered in the eye” answers the question which means that attraction comes from looking. “While gazing fed, and fancy dies” means that attraction is fed and grows when someone is looking, and then it dies at the end when not being looked at. Portia is basically cheating because she tries to hint at Bassanio not to choose exterior beauty since beauty is only temporary. She’s trying to tell Bassanio not to choose the gold casket. Also in this song the biggest hint comes from the words “bred,” “head,” “nourished,” which all rhyme with lead -- the correct casket in which Portia is “locked in.” Bassanio receives the message and eventually chooses the right casket and wins Portia. Portia cheating shows her first initial step to break away from being kept in chains of the will of her father. At first her admitting to being the object may seem like her giving into the system, but she does this only to fool Bassanio into thinking that he is superior. It may seem like Bassanio has won, but in the end the real winner is Portia. Portia gets what she wants; she marries the suitor she wants and she does this through means of