Shylock suggests the game: If he doesn’t get the money back in time he wants one pound of meat out of the body of Antonio. What seems to be a joke becomes deadly truth when Shylocks looses his daughter and therefore his future. Shylock looses her and with her his money that she took with him. As a foreigner only money gives him a livable environment in the society where he is hated as a foreigner. Revenge starts to rise and Shylock sticks to his contract that promised him one pound of Antonio’s body. He goes to court demanding his right as it is written in the contract with Antonio.

The pound of flesh which I demand of him
Is dearly bought. ‘Tis mine, and I will have it.
(IV.i.89–99)

Fairy Tale
Shylock is an outsider because he is a foreigner. Portia is an outsider because she is a woman in a not emancipated world. Both only get their positions and respect only because they are rich. Both play very creative games.

One pound meet
In court these two outsiders are confronted with each other. Shakespeare shows us how creativity can be the key to law that is dictated by economics.

Meanwhile, in Belmont, Portia’s father left a will stipulating each of her suitors must choose correctly from one of three caskets – one each of gold, silver and lead. If he picks the right casket, he gets Portia. Bassanio chooses the lead casket and wins Portia’s hand.

The climax of the play takes place in the court of the Duke of Venice. Shylock refuses Bassanio’s offer of 6,000 ducats, twice the amount of the loan. He demands his pound of flesh from Antonio. The Duke, wishing to save Antonio but unable to nullify a contract, refers the case to a visitor. The doctor is Portia in disguise, disguised as a man. Portia repeatedly asks Shylock to show mercy in a famous speech, advising him that mercy “is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes” (IV, i, 185). However, Shylock adamantly refuses any compensations and insists on the pound of flesh.

As the court grants Shylock his bond and Antonio prepares for Shylock’s knife, Portia deftly appropriates Shylock’s argument for “specific performance”. She says that the contract allows Shylock only to remove the flesh, not the “blood”, of Antonio (see quibble). Thus, if Shylock were to shed any drop of Antonio’s blood, his “lands and goods” would be forfeited under Venetian laws. She tells him that he must cut precisely one pound of flesh, no more, no less; she advises him that “if the scale do turn, But in the estimation of a hair, Thou diest and all thy goods are confiscate.”