To what extent is Shylock, in The Merchant of Venice, defined by his religion and profession?

Actors have from the earliest times represented Shylock as
a bad character "with red hair and a monstrous nose clamoring
 for the blood of Antonio with a fiendish
delight"
.

Shakespeare has presented the
Jew in his play. Shakespeare , the Elizabethan , addicted to the thought, reason,
sentiments and prejudices of his contemporaries, also felt like them a bitter hatred of
the Jews, which was typical of the popular conception of what the Jew could be both in
the Elizabethan age, and medieval times . Thus, while Shakespeare ,the Elizabethan ,
created, Shylock, the villain, insisting on his pound of flesh, Shakespeare, the artist,
painted Shylock, the hero –“the depository of the vengeance of his race” – through his
unconscious dramatic instinct.

He was, of course, an
usurer, charging interest for the money because it gave him the only source of
protection among the violently hostile Christen. As a Jew he nursed a real grievances
against the Christen zealots who prosecuted his race while as a money-lender he hated
Antonio not only for interfering with his professional activities by lending money
gratis but also for insulting and abusing him personality, in privet and in public. His
love of his ‘sacred nation’ may be offensive to the Christens. But it should be
remembered that love of their race and preservation of racial peculiarities was to the
Jews what love of country was to the other people, because the Jews had been exiled from
their homeland for centuries together. “He has a soft place in his heart” are
undercurrent of affection and love for his kith and kin though crushed over with malice
and misanthropy begotten of injustice and ill-treatment. The constant apprehension of
being  burnt alive, plundered, banished, reviled and trampled upon might be supposed to
sour the most for bearing nature. The desire of  revenge  is almost inseparable  from
the sense of wrong. To crown all , his own daughter has eloped with a Christian and has
stolen “his jewels and a lot of money.”

Shylock might be a
bad man but do not the circumstances in which he is placed, conspire to draw out some of
the worst traits of his character – his malignity, vindictiveness and revenge. He is
after all, human. He loves his daughter and his affection for her is none-the-less
genuine in spite of her treachery and desertion rendered possible by the help and
connivance of Christian. Even in the trial-scene he fondly cherishes the memory of his
wife. He has a good word for Launcelot, his servant. He even wanted to be a friend of
Antonio but received only insults for him.

It is no wonder
, then that in the Trial-scene he appears like the very embodiment of vengeance, his
miserliness even becoming subordinate to it. It is only then that Shylock becomes
morally less and sympathetic to us, because he is making a deliberate attempt at taking
the life of a Christian, though we are touched and thrilled by the pathos of his parting
words :

“I pray
 you , give me leave to go from
hence

I
am not  well .”

And, last of all
, when the grand of old Jew leaves the stage crushed, broken , cheated and despoiled of
all the things dear to his heart, we are almost persuaded to think that the poor man is
more sinned against than sinning.