“It is much that the Moor should be more than reason”: Portia, Race, and Nation in Adaptation

Abstract

The Merchant of Venice includes two characters of color: one in the list of roles—the Prince of Morocco—and one unseen and mentioned only in passing during the action—the Moorish woman made pregnant by Lancelet. Of all the adaptations of Merchant in fiction and drama, Morocco appears in only two. Likewise, the pregnant Moor. Furthermore, Portia is seldom a significant character in these adaptations, even though she is the largest role in the play. This paper explores Portia’s portrayal in adaptation in relation to race and nation. It considers Grace Tiffany’s novel, The Turquoise Ring (2005), as a rare example of how Portia’s problematic relationship with race has been interrogated in fiction and argues that a lack of desire to confront Portia’s racism is a major contributory factor to her apparent “unadaptability.”