Would you consider Jessica a traitor?

From her father Shylock’s perspective, Jessica is a traitor. From the Christian characters’ viewpoints, she is brave and virtuous. She feels conflicted about her position: “what heinous sin is it in me / To be ashamed to be my father's child!” Jessica plans to resolve this conflict by marrying Lorenzo and converting to Christianity. It is true that her father is harsh and strict.

However, Jessica not only elopes with Lorenzo, she also steals Shylock’s...

From her father Shylock’s perspective, Jessica is a traitor. From the Christian characters’ viewpoints, she is brave and virtuous. She feels conflicted about her position: “what heinous sin is it in me / To be ashamed to be my father's child!” Jessica plans to resolve this conflict by marrying Lorenzo and converting to Christianity. It is true that her father is harsh and strict.

However, Jessica not only elopes with Lorenzo, she also steals Shylock’s money. Shylock’s reaction to this betrayal is mixed. He supposedly cries, “My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter!” confused as to whether he is more enraged by her marrying a Christian, running away from him, or stealing from him. He even wishes death upon her: “I would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear!”

Still, Shylock refers to Jessica as his “flesh and blood.” It is easy to sympathize with him when he hears how carelessly she spends the money. She even trades a ring, which he had “of Leah when [he] was a bachelor,” for a monkey. There seems to be sentimental value in the piece of jewelry. However justified her actions, Jessica is a traitor to Shylock. The question is whether she was in the right to betray him, considering his severe flaws as a human being.