Merchant of Venice

This term, our class is having Literature lessons regarding the play, "Merchant of Venice", written by none other than William Shakespeare. I have read some parts of the book but, to be honest, I don't understand much at all! I sort of understand the storyline but some things said by the character are hard to understand. Luckily, the book has helped us with this problem, by explaining what each phrase or word mean at the adjacent page.
The book seems interesting, I heard of the storyline before but i don't know where. My favourite character in the book so far is Antonio. Who would take up such a huge loan just for a friend? One of the main themes of the book seems to be prejudice. However, it seems that the prejudice in this book is different from that in To Kill A Mockingbird. In MOV, the prejudice portrayed is more of religious prejudice rather than racial.
I look forward to analyzing the play in class and hope that it is as interesting as it seems to be at first glance.