Abstract
In his essay, "The Theme of the Three Caskets, " Sigmund Freud points out that the casket of lead stands for the Goddess of Death and, by "replacements by the precise opposite, " the Goddess of Love. A portrait of Portia's is locked in in this casket of lead. Thus Portia is closely associated with both "creators and destroyers, " in other words, with "goddesses of life and fertility and goddesses of death. " This ambivalence of hers is made explicit in her name and in her association with Medea. It is also plainly represented in what she does in the play. She gives money to Antonio, Bassanio, Lorenzo and Jessica and takes it away from Shylock. Since everyone of them thinks that money is the source of his (or her) life or life itself, Portia's giving money to these three Christian Venetians and Jessica means that she gives life to them while her taking it away from Shylock means that she gives death to him. In this way, the ambivalence that Freud finds in Portia in the casket scene is appropriate through out the play of The Merchant of Venice.
