“The Taming Of The Shrew” by William Shakespeare is a work of satire created to criticize the misogynistic outlooks of the 16th century. With this play, Shakespeare is trying to say that the idea and role of women in his society is deeply flawed and should be fixed, as well as to make other social commentaries, such as on the treatment of servants. Through exaggeration and parody, Shakespeare makes society look silly.
The entirety of “The Taming Of The Shrew” is essentially a giant parody. Full of imitations and disguises itself, Shakespeare focuses on a typical situation in his society, several men trying to court a woman, and having to deal with an intolerable woman. Through this imitation, the ridiculousness of the characters can be seen. This absurdity is incredibly obvious to us today, because our society
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Using the same satirical techniques, he points out, a little more subtly, that servants, like women, are treated like less than people, when they are people just as good as everybody else. throughout the play we see instances of the mistreatment of servants, such as Vincentio beating Biondello, Petruchio abusing his entire staff, and Lucentio using Tranio as a pawn to help him win over a girl. Tranio even laments about this, saying, “Oh, sir, Lucentio slipped me like his greyhound, which runs himself and catches for his master.” Tranio is comparing himself to a dog to be used at Lucentio’s command in this quote, commenting on how Lucentio may treat him well, but he still does not value him as a person.
William Shakespeare is a master of satire, and it is very evident in his work “The Taming Of The Shrew”. His use of exaggeration is impeccable, and he managed to make the entire work one giant parody. Through this satire, he makes a very important social commentary, using his influence to bring new ideas into people’s minds, and make them realize the flaws in their
Petruchio physically asks her to sit on his lap “come sit on me” in a
Shakespeare, William. _The Taming of the Shrew_. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Ed. Dean Johnson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. 142-171.
In Shakespeare's comedy, The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare has a woman as one of the story's main characters. Katherine Minola (Kate) is off the wall, and kinda crazy. Because of her actions, the “male centered world” around her doesn't know what to do with her.
The first Shakespeare play which Zeffirelli adopted to the cinema, The Taming of the Shrew, deals with the theme of gender roles. In a grander scale the play explores the behavior expectations of males and females both in society at large and within a domestic relationship. For many years, most critics agreed that the heart of the play suggested male domination and female submission, especially to the authority of their husbands, as the accepted male-female dynamic. This view went unchanged for many years and audiences widely accepted Petruchio's “taming” of Katherina as politically correct.
...ished in real society. It is through of the eyes of Chaucer the pilgrim, and through his tendency to use long words, complicated sentences and paragraphs, attractive mannerisms of expression and absurd situations that the parodist features can be easily identified and then analysed. Expressions like “men should not be too serious at a game” shows how everything is being softened so as not to bother anyone, but amuse them and invite them to read, for later inspire the sense of criticism – satire. Chaucer the poet is “therefore a man who takes it upon himself to correct censure and ridicule the foolishness and vices of society and thus to bring contempt and mockery upon anomalies from a desirable and civilized norm”. Thus, Chaucer’s collection of parodies actually conveys a satire: a protest, a sublimation and refinement of anger and indignation of the medieval times.
In Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew the elements of farce are exemplified in terms of character, plot, and writing style. The stereotyped characters in The Taming of the Shrew are typical of a farce. Katherina is an outstanding example of a farcical character. Katherina, although stereotyped as a boisterous shrew, can be portrayed as a person needing sympathy due to Baptista's favoritism. The quote, "She is your treasure, she must have a husband: I must dance barefoot on her wedding day…" (A. II S. 1 L. 36-37), makes it obvious that Baptista favors Bianca. In terms of plot, Shakespeare devises the plot to resemble a situation comedy. Although the subplot is more romantic, both the subplot and the main plot revolve around the principle of a favoristic father who is outwitted by his child and her lover.
Zhu, Mei. ""Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew and the Tradition of Screwball Comedy." Purdue University Press, 1 Jan. 2004. Web. 20 May 2014.
"Women have a much better time than men in this world; there are far more things forbidden to them." -Oscar Wilde. This quote embodies the fight over gender roles and the views of women in society. Taming of the Shrew deals with Kate and Bianca, two sisters who are at the time to he married off. However, suitors who seek Bianca as a wife have to wait for her sister to be married first. Kate is seen as a shrew because she is strong willed and unlike most women of the time. In his 1603 play The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare enforces traditional gender roles and demonstrates how little say women had in society. He accomplishes this through the strong personality of Kate, Baptista 's attitude towards his daughters as transactions, and
The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare is a play that is ahead of its time in its views toward gender roles within society. Katherine is a woman who is intelligent, and is not afraid to assert her views on any given situation. She is paired with another obstinate character in Pertuchio. The marriage formed between the two is a match made in heaven for two reasons. First, because Katherine is strong enough to assert her views, and more importantly, she realizes when she should assert them.
The Taming of the Shrew is one of the earliest comedies written by William Shakespeare. The Taming of the Shrew focuses a great deal on courtship and marriage. Especially the life after marriage, which was generally not focused on in other comedies. Notably, the play focuses on the social roles that each character plays, and how each character faces the major struggles of their social roles. Which plays into one of the most prevalent themes of The Taming of the Shrew. The theme of how social roles play into a person’s individual happiness. This is displayed through the characters in the play that desperately try to break out of the social roles that are forced upon them. This exemplified through the character, Katherine, an upper-class young maiden-in-waiting, who wishes to have nothing to do with her role.
The Taming of the Shrew is set in a time period that did not accept women as we do today. In today's society, women who are strong and independent and quick witted are praised. In Elizabethan times women were supposed to know their role in life, being good to their husbands, making children and taking care of them. There were no women in politics, there were no women in business, it was only acceptable for women to participate in domestic areas of life. Women could not live a respectable life in this time period without a male figure to take care of them, rendering them helpless without men. If there was anything that must be done involving economics or education, it was up to the men. Men were the ones who worked and brought home the money to support the family. The roles of men and women were very distinct, and it resulted in giving the men the majority of the power.
Sexism is an ever changing concept in today’s world. Every day the concept morphs a little bit, changing the entire definition of what is sexist and what is not. In The Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare, the male characters lie to and abuse their women in order to have the women marry them. Lucentio come to Padua to study, but when he sees a beautiful girl, he pretends to be a teacher in order to marry Bianca. Petruchio on the other hand forces a woman to marry him and then trains her to follow his every command. Although the The Taming of the Shrew is frequently regarded as a particularly sexist play, it is not sexist and demeaning towards women.
A Shakespearean scholar expanded on this, “The play enacts the defeat of the threat of a woman’s revolt; it does so in a comic form – thus so offers the audience the chance to revel in and reinforce their misogyny while at the same time feeling good” (Gay). The Taming of the Shrew at many points is just praising the men in the novel despite their behavior and putting down the women for being anything but perfect. The novel makes the actions happening comedic and the reader does not get upset at the things happening, but in reading further into it and comparing in to modern day, it is not hard to see the plain and simple abuse. Although gender roles are still prominent into today’s society they are toned back. In contemporary version of The
In The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare creates humour through his characters by creating false realities (as demonstrated by Petruchio’s behaviour and attire in the scene of his wedding) and by the use of subterfuge and mistaken identity (shown in the final scenes with the transformation of Kate and Bianca’s respective personas). He also uses irony quite extensively, especially towards the end of the play (as can be seen in the final ‘wager’ scene).
Taming of the shrew was the time where women were the underdog. Females were meant to be obedient and not outspoken. However, the woman who puts that to rest was a girl named Katherine. With women aside, the men set themselves in societal classes for them to be set higher than those who have less. The more money the man has, the better chances he gets the better trophy wife. The setting tells the readers exactly what time line they are reading into when they hear certain words like “dowry.” The story continues in this transversal period of women changing the perception of how they should be looked at and seen with their lover or equal.