Personal Opinion

Portia is not an ordinary female character as others in classic stories, she is intelligent, independent, brave, and inspiring. Although she still have to obey her father's order to marry a gentleman who chooses the correct casket, but the scene tells a story that she must choose a man who not just look at the surface with a shallow mind, but having clear eyes and righteous personality. At the climax of "The merchant of Venice", the court scene, she disguises as a man, a lawyer's apprentice named Balthazar, helps her husband and his friend in the adversity, this is what makes her different from others.