Was Portia being merciful or driving Shylock to ends? #8

Whether or not Portia was being merciful or was trying to drive Shylock to his wits ends on purpose depends on how you view Portia as a person. If you view her as one who is pretty, rich, generous, kind (the perfect girl in the context), she was definitely being merciful towards Shylock when she was asking him to show mercy towards Antonio. I believe Portia was already prepared beforehand and have already decided to use these reasons to backfire Shylock's bond, and what she was doing was giving him a chance to stop what he's doing for the benefit of both himself and Antonio. Similarly, previously in the novel, we can see Portia trying to help Bassanio when he knew that Antonio was in trouble. Instead of being stingy and unwilling to let him leave, she asked him to give many more times the amount that was borrowed just to save his dear friend. This shows clearly that Portia was a very generous and big-hearted person in nature.

However, it isn't entirely impossible that Portia was doing this to drive Shylock to his ends. In this case, a very possible reason was to stop Shylock from threatening both Bassanio and his dear friend, Antonio. Through her actions, she first tricked Shylock into saying that he would only have the penalty, but later turned the tables around by saying that the penalty cannot be carried out as it's suspected of murder. Similarly, in other parts of the novel, we can see that she wasn't as "kind" as she appears to be, having a different thinking as compared to what she says. Therefore, being a smart and cautious person herself, it was possible for her to do this on purpose.

Ultimately, I believe that she was being merciful towards Shylock, as it is more reasonable to say that she is a generous person than a ruthless person. Given her actions towards Antonio and Bassanio, I'm positive that she wouldn't treat Shylock, another typical human being, any worse.