In The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare uses risk to show how most of the Christians focus on the possible good outcomes rather than the possible bad outcomes. Shakespeare creates the Christian character, Antonio, to help prove his point. Antonio has no worries about his investments on the cargo ships. He also agrees to be bound to Shylock for the three thousand ducats. How Actuarial is a Pound of Flesh, by Daniel D. Skwire, also talks about Shakespeare and how he portrays risk in The Merchant of Venice. Antonio takes a risk by having his money invested in cargo ships out at sea. He does not worry about not having his money with him but solely focuses on the fact that when the ships return, he will have more money than what he started with. …show more content…
Skwire also agrees with the statement that Shakespeare writes about Christian characters who take risks because they tend to look at positive outcome rather than negative outcomes. Daniel D. Skwire says, “The Merchant of Venice is a case study in how and how not to manage risk” (Skwire, 26). He also mentions how Antonio follows an actual risk management strategy called diversification. Diversification is when someone spreads their money out between multiple different places in order to increase their chance of gain and decrease their chance of loss. He makes the connection that Shakespeare includes risk as an important aspect of The Merchant of Venice and how people tend to deal with it in certain situations. Daniel D. Skwire later mentions that “Antonio is done in by excessive optimism, and he appears to consider only favorable outcomes and never the potential downside” (Skwire, 26). This connects to what is previously stated about how Shakespeare writes his Christian characters to look at the positive side of things which they can benefit from rather than the darker side of things. Daniel Skwire notes that Antonio is very optimistic when it comes to things in the book. This goes along with the idea that Shakespeare tries to show how Christians in his time period have more of an optimistic way of looking at things even when it is highly likely that something bad is going to