Plot & Characters:

The Merchant of Venice is categorized as the early Shakespearean comedy which portrays victory of good over evil. In this work, Shakespeare has looked upon and used some stern subjects. In the play, Shakespeare knits together two primeval romantic fictions, one connecting a unforgiving, voracious money donor demanding to strict a thump of flesh, the other concerning a marriage tailor’s selection amongst three chests and in that way captivating his companion. Shakespeare's handling of the typical plot scheme revolves around the scoundrel of Merchant, the Jewish moneylender Shylock, who seeks an unembroidered thump of pulp from his Christian counterpart, the bighearted and authentic Antonio. Play also revolves around the story of a heroine, who maneuvers her aficionado ‘Bassanio’ toward the truthful and unassuming coffer and then effectively protects his bosom friend Antonio from Shylock's unpleasant court case.

Historically, Richard III is a staging of authentic chronological proceedings that finished in the year 1485, when the ruling of the Plantagenet family over England was substituted by the Tudor dominion. One hundred years after these events, Shakespeare's Elizabethan listeners were undoubtedly proverbial with them and they were predominantly enthralled with the temperament of Richard III. Shakespeare's audiences could willingly recognize the assorted political splinter groups and multifarious family associations portrayed in the play.

The play is dominated by Richard, the Duke of Gloucester, who becomes Richard III through a sequence of atrocious exploitations, assassination of his adversaries, his kinsmen, his wife and majority of his followers before getting to the ‘Battle of Bosworth’ and expressing with grief "My kingdom for a horse." In a work that is as much drama as history, Richard is a pure, self-professed scoundrel of gruesome magnitude. Richard’s evil maneuvers the plot until his final trounce by the Duke of Richmond.

Settings:

The play, The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare has two main settings.  One setting is Venice, a city where many businessmen live, a place full of unhappy and unkind people.  It is a world of commerce and law.  Venice has been portrayed by Shakespeare as the “real” world. The other setting is Belmont, a city which houses a rich, happy and sophisticated society of beautiful people.  Belmont is a fairy-tale world of music and love.  In this play it is evident that, good things occur in Belmont and not so pleasant events take place in Venice.

William Shakespeare in his play ‘Richard III’ has used main setting of Buckingham and Gloucester U.K. Shakespeare presents Buckingham as the center of gravity for all of political activities which are filled with contempt and jealous action in every aspect. In the play, Shakespeare has portrayed Buckingham as a place where hatred and wickedness overcomes good and fair play.

Comedic elements:

Despite the high violence of the play and the villainous nature of the title character, Shakespeare manages to infuse the play ‘Richard III’ with an astonishing quantity of humorist substance. Much of the hilarity escalates from the confusion flanked by what one wants Richard's character to be and how Richard attempts to come out as. The most important instance is conceivably the segment of Act III, Scene 1, where Richard is strained to act good with the juvenile and contemptuous Duke of York.

Although, Shakespeare uses comic scenes in his play of ‘Richard III’, he has not maintained the same trend for ‘The Merchant of Venice’. ‘Merchant of Venice’ on the other hand is very serious play.

The Main Difference:

Shakespeare’s plays ‘The Merchant of Venice’ and ‘Richard III’, have been considered successful and exemplary by critics. However, they both are most different to each other in their basic approach, motive and central idea.

Shakespeare successfully shows the victory of good over evil in ‘The Merchant of Venice’ in contrast with ‘Richard III’ where the good and evil are hard to be differentiated from each other; Perhaps Evil rules over Good in the later one.
Merchant of Venice’s central idea is the strengthening of moral and ethical values along the length of the play. This is shown by the cruel character of Shylock who is a Jew and acts as if he was being forced to become a Christian. In the end his immoral and unethical claims are beaten up by Antonio and Bassanio.