In an earlier post I mentioned the phrase “all that glitters is not gold”. These universal words were first heard in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Originally the phrase was “all that glisters is not gold”, however, this occurred in the 1596 edition of the play and “glitters” is now widely accepted and used.

The basic plot of The Merchant of Venice is a classic story of leaving love up to fate. Portia, a wealthy heiress from Belmont, is required by her father’s will to marry the suitor who correctly chooses one of three caskets, the one containing Portia’s picture. This scene takes place in Act II Scene 7. The rest of the play can be viewed here. The first man, the Prince of Morocco figures he will read the inscriptions of each casket to come to a conclusion. The lead casket says, “Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath” (Line 1002). The Prince sees this as a threatening message and moves on to the silver casket. This next inscription reads: “Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves” (Line 1009). The Prince feels that he deserves Portia, and so keeping this in mind he considers his last option, the golden casket. Its inscription says, “Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire” (1023). He reasons that surely many men desire the lovely heiress, and of course gold is in many ways exceptional. This strategy does not work, because the Prince of Morocco misguidedly chooses the the gold casket. Next come the famous words from the Prince himself:

O hell! what have we here?
A carrion Death, within whose empty eye
There is a written scroll! I’ll read the writing.
Reads
All that glitters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms enfold.
Had you been as wise as bold,
Young in limbs, in judgment old,
Your answer had not been inscroll’d:
Fare you well; your suit is cold.
Cold, indeed; and labour lost:
Then, farewell, heat, and welcome, frost!
Portia, adieu. I have too grieved a heart
To take a tedious leave: thus losers part.

The point, or lesson to learn from the Prince’s mistaken judgment, is that shiny things aren’t necessarily precious things. What appears to be great may not be so nice upon taking a closer look. The sparkle of gold may be so blinding that it blocks out the so-called worms its hiding, while the simpler appearance of the lead casket bares all and is overlooked. It turns out the lead casket was the right choice, as Bassanio, Portia’s true love, comes to find. Another prince, the Prince of Arragon, chooses the silver casket and is left with no bride just like the Prince of Morocco. Relating more to the idea of keeping up appearances, a similar example comes to mind. Someone who seems to have it all together may simply be keeping up appearances. Their life seems golden, but as Shakespeare proved, all that glitters is not gold. I’ve also thought more about what it means to keep up appearances. As a working definition, I think it is to pretend to be alright or to pretend that everything is going well. It might also have to do more with keeping up with expectations of others. For example, in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Brad is a popular, secretly gay football player who is seeing a boy named Patrick outside of school. However, at school he keeps up appearances by dating the head cheerleader, Nancy, because it’s what’s expected of him. So when we keep up appearances, essentially we are lying. Whether more to ourselves or to others, we aren’t showing our true selves when we don’t feel great but we dress up and show up anyways, or when we frantically pick up the house to be presentable for guests.
Right now I feel like my ideas are a bit all over the place, but I’d like to incorporate more psychological and social aspects as well as take a look at specific cultures (British vs. American, suburbia, urban life?) when thinking about how and why we keep up appearances. Is there a time that we aren’t keeping up appearances? Maybe not. The elusive question now is: If in keeping up appearances we aren’t ourselves, who are we?

Works Cited:

“Merchant of Venice, Act II, Scene 7 : Open Source Shakespeare.” Open Source Shakespeare: search Shakespeare’s works, read the texts. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Mar. 2013. <http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/play_view.php?WorkID=merchantvenice&Act=2&Scene=7&Scope=scene&gt;.

“Merchant of Venice: Entire Play .” The Complete Works of William Shakespeare . N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Mar. 2013. <http://shakespeare.mit.edu/merchant/full.html&gt;.