Many times when a person reads a story, they are often left not knowing the ending to every last detail. Some people like to decide what might happen to the rest of the characters on their own, but many people also like to know how the story ends according to the author. In The Merchant of Venice, almost every character and all the details are fully explained in the last act. There is not much left for the reader to imagine at the end of this story. One of the purposes of the last act in the play, The Merchant of Venice, is so that the reader is left with a clear and true perception of the last details. In this play's case the details that are explained are that of how the husbands gave away their precious rings, how Portia reveals who the "doctor" in the court room really was, and all of the minor, yet meaningful, details of the other little schemes that took place. .
In most of Shakespeare's plays he doesn't usually end them with a thoroughly detailed ending. He likes to leave the readers hanging on his last words, and let them think about how the play could or couldn't have ended. In this particular play, he doesn't leave much to the reader's imagination. The last act is based on Portia and Nerissa revealing to Bassanio, Antonio and Gratiano what actually happened back in the courtroom and the meddling that took place. .
In the beginning of the last act, Portia and Nerissa start meddling with Bassanio and Gratiano's minds by bringing up the rings that Portia and Nerissa gave to their husbands as gifts. They rebuked their husbands about how they gave away these precious tokens of love to a doctor and his clerk whom they just met and the women show how they are supposedly incredibly irritated by all of this. "What ring gave you, my lord?- (5.1.198-199). The women then turn the tables and say that they do have the rings that the men gave the doctor and his clerk and that they received them by sleeping with them.