Examples Of Emotional Abuse In Taming Of The Shrew

Maisaa Othman

Professor Michael Schuyler

ENL 376/British& American Lit Tradition

Essay# 1

Dehumanizing the Shrew to the Constructs of Society;

The Mental and Emotional Abuse in The Taming of the Shrew

William Shakespeare is a prominent and immortalized writer during the Elizabethan period. His works are well known throughout history. His poems and plays have influenced many writers and poets today. Shakespeare’s clever use of Comedy, Drama and Tragedy allows him to convey a deeper message within his works. An example of this is his first comedic play The Taming of the Shrew. The Taming of the Shrew is a story of a rich father named Baptista Minola, and his two daughters: Katharine, known for shrewdness and her sharp tongue, and Bianca, who is known for her beauty and modesty in her speech. Many men seek to betroth Bianca, however, none may marry her until her older sister Katharine is married. Sadly no man wants a woman with such disobedience. That is until Petruchio, takes on the challenge of “taming the shrew.”

The Elizabethan era was a patriarchal society. It was a time when men were considered to be superior and women were considered to be inferior. Women were regarded as the weaker sex-physically and emotionally. It was believed that women always needed a man to look after them. If they were married, their husband had to look after them. If they were unwed, then it was their father, or brother that needed to look after them. Mary Wollstonecraft, wonders about the“…exclamations against masculine women; but [questions] where are they to be found?” (7). Wollstonecraft is calling for the strong and masculine women to come out of hiding of society’s shadow to and stand together against the oppression. However, the only per...

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...ht and be who is, is now gone. This testimony is William Shakespeare’s message towards women stating that we must serve our husbands as our “Lords” and “Sovereigns” as if we are put on earth just to serve them as their robots. It is as if it is the Stepford Wives, and that we must succumb to their every want and need.

In conclusion, The Taming of the Shrew is not the comedy it is praised to be. It is a tragic tale of a woman’s lost of identity through mental and emotion abuse. This dehumanizing tale of is almost like a sick how to guide on how to tame a woman. As a woman, I am at a loss for words for the loss of what she has now become. In the beginning of the text she was the one I was rooting for, the one that Mary Wollstonecraft is looking for to change the world so we may be free. But now she is just another “proper” woman and commodity of society’s constructs.