He was convicted and executed for supposedly plotting to murder his royal patient. We cannot be sure that Shakespeare had the Roderigo Lopez case in mind. Most likely, he did. In sixteenth-century Europe Jews were a despised and persecuted minority (Stirling, par. 2). England, in fact, went beyond mere persecution and harassment by banning Jews from the country altogether. In theory at least, there were no Jews at all in England in Shakespeare's time, and there hadn't been since the year 1290 when they were officially expelled by King Edward I.
Shylock is portrayed as an evil Jew to provide realism, as we are meant to feel sorry for him due to the treatment received from the Christians in the play (Manley, Par. 16). Elizabethan audiences would have hated him, but would have felt some sympathy for him as Shakespeare makes them think about how they treat Jews. In fact, Shylock is forgiven and allowed the great kindness (by Shakespearean standards, if not ours) of becoming a Christian, which provides him with an opportunity to be saved. He will be baptized as a Christian and welcomed back into society. It seems a harsh punishment to force a person to give up his religious belief and adopt another religion. Shakespeare's audience perceived that as a kindness to Shylock, and many probably would have thought the moneylender did not deserve a chance at salvation, which becoming a Christian would provide for him. The greatest flaw of Shylock is the fact that he does accept the conversion penalty; what he should do, if he had courage and commitment to his faith, is to admit religious martyrdom and say "Kill me if you will; I will never become a Christian!" But Shylock shows his true face by accepting the Christian conversion (Manley, par. 16). So we cannot feel totally sorry for him. .
There is no way to ignore the fact that Shylock's character reflects some very nasty stereotypes about Jews.
