Solanio and Salerio, Unnecessary Busybodies

In reading Merchant of Venice, I can’t help but question the degree of helpfulness Salerio and Solanio offer.  What do they really do for the play?  What is their purpose?  They are present throughout the whole play, but do they really add anything?  These are some questions I thought about when analyzing the characters of Salerio and Solanio, and what made them so annoying to me. 

To me, these characters seem unnecessary to the plot line.  What they offer is very little, but they are there a lot of the time.  It reminded me of when Amy Farrah Fowler from The Big Bang Theory concluded Indiana Jones was not necessary to the story line of Raiders of the Lost Ark, which clip I have put down below. It is not necessary to watch in order to understand my post, but I included it because I think it gives another example of the argument I am trying to make.  (My apologies if this ruins the movie for you, and also for the sexual suggestion).  Salerio and Solanio are basically the unnecessary Indiana Jones in The Merchant of Venice.  

Just as Indiana Jones is not necessary to  Raiders of the Lost Ark according to Amy because his involvement does not add anything to the outcome of the story, I argue that Solanio and Salerio do not add anything to The Merchant of Venice and if they were removed from the play, it would be the same story. If they were not there, Antonio would have still made that deal with Shylock, Bassanio would have still married Portia, and Portia would have still used the "law" against Shylock in the end.  Nothing would change in regards to story line.  

So what is their purpose if they are not inherently necessary for the story to progress?  They act as narrators and give us some background information that is not inherently in the conversations between main characters.  For example, we find out Shylock's daughter Jessica had run off with Christian Lorenzo (2.8) as well as that Antonio's boats wrecked from the conversation between Salerio and Solanio in 3.1. In 2.8, Salerio and Solanio discuss Jessica's flight from her father's and Shylock's reaction. This scene is one that probably adds the most weight to these characters' necessity.  Their main role in 2.8 is to express how bad a guy Shylock is, emphasizing Shylock's intense need for his money over his daughter, and in turn boost the characters of Antonio and Bassanio by talking so highly of them.  However, what they say is really repeated in 3.1, so is this scene really necessary?  I do not think so, it could have just been combined with 3.1.

3.1 is Salerio and Solanio's most prevalent scene, their taunting prompting Shylock to go into his iconic speech about the humanity of Jews.  However, I do not think they are necessary to the scene.  Shylock could have gone into that speech at the beginning, or Tubal could have told him about the wrecked ships.  Salerio and Solanio are kind of fillers in the conversations among major characters (1.1), even as they are presented as important to the story by their relatively frequent presence and commentary.

With these scenes in mind, I conclude that these characters are not necessary.  All the information they give to the audience could have been explained and given easily by major characters, or just left implied.  The play really would not lose anything if these characters did not exist.  It makes me wonder why they were put in the play in the first place.  Perhaps William Shakespeare was so used to a narrator or chorus part that he felt he needed some characters that can fill that role.  I agree that a role that fits the function of a narrator is often necessary for histories such as Henry V, but for comedies I do not think these roles are necessary because there is no backstory to explain or a need to sound official/dramatic.  Especially in this play, it seems like a forced addition, or at the very least an unnecessary one. Or, maybe there just had to be more Christian characters to ridicule the main Jewish one to incite such an explosive reaction from Shylock.  

In this role, Salerio and Solanio kind of seem like busybodies who have to know everyone's business.  Like what is their relationship with everyone else?  We are told in the list of characters that they are friends to Antonio and Bassanio, so how do they find themselves with Shylock in 3.1?  None of the other friends like Graziano do this, and it just seems a little out of place.  How did they suddenly insert themselves in the conversation?  I don't think their removal would change the story at all.  They just seem so out of place and unnecessary in this role, and thus they feel out of place in the play to me.    


Also, while we are on the topic of not necessary, can anyone explain to me 2.2?  Was there any point to that scene (especially the part between Lancelet and Gobbo)?  Asking for a friend.