The Taming of the Shrew, written by William Shakespeare, is historical proof that flirting and temptation, relating to the opposite sex, has been around since the earliest of times. Because males and females continue to interact, the complications in this play remain as relevant and humorous today as they did to Elizabethan audiences. This is a very fun play, full of comedy and sexual remarks. It's lasting impression imprints itself into the minds of its readers, for it is an unforgettable story of sex, flirting, and happiness. The Taming of the Shrew remains as relevant today because of its relation to the age-old story of the battle of the sexes and dynamics of marriage, as well as the woman's struggle with both of these.
Katharina and Petruchio share an unusual relationship; he has trouble taming her, and she battles with keeping him happy, for she is now in love and is experiencing something new. "The Taming of the Shrew is sometimes seen as an account of the tyranny of man over woman, but this is a misinterpretation stemming from our distance from the assumptions of Shakespeare's day" (Shakespeare A to Z 626). The irony of their marriage is vividly expressed when it is revealed that Petruchio is merely looking for a woman who is capable enough to run his estate. In this sense, he has taken advantage of her, for she has unwillingly fallen in love. "He chooses Kate as he would a horse, for her high mettle, and he must use at least as much intelligence and energy in bringing her trust to him, as he would in breaking a horse…" (Greer 40). Shakespeare also uses this recurring theme later in The Comedy of Errors, when Luciana reminds Adriana that " men are masters of their females" (The Comedy Of Errors).
...
... middle of paper ...
... Handbook. 1987. 100-101.
Spurgeon, Caroline F.E. "Imagery Establishes Atmosphere and Background in
the Comedies." Readings on William Shakespeare The Comedies.
Ed. Bruno Leone. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1997. 62-71.
Spurgeon, Caroline F.E. Shakespeare's Imagery and What It Tells Us.
New York: The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press, 1981.
286-287.
"The Taming of the Shrew." Shakespeare A to Z. 1990. 623-629.
"The Taming of the Shrew." The Shakespeare Handbook. 1987. 96-97.
"The Taming of the Shrew ." Masterpieces of World Literature. 1989.
837-840.
"The Taming of the Shrew." Moulton's Library of Literary Criticism. Vol.1.
1966. 212-214.
Van Doren, Mark. "The Taming of the Shrew is a Farce." Readings on
William Shakespeare The Comedies. Ed. Bruno Leone. San Diego:
Greenhaven Press, 1997. 87-91.
Examine the different ways in which Shakespeare presents the attitude towards marriage in the play, ‘The Taming of the Shrew.’
“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.
Over the past 400 or so years since Shakespeare wrote _The Taming of the Shrew_, many writers, painters, musicians and directors have adapted and reformed this play of control and subjugation into timeless pieces of art. In _10 Things I Hate About You_ and Kiss Me Kate from two very different times in the twentieth century, and paintings of Katherina and Bianca from the late nineteenth century, the creators of these adaptations have chosen to focus on the role of the two main female characters in the play. The ideas surrounding these women have changed through the years, from Katherina and Bianca simply being young women who deviated from the norm of Shakespeare’s time to women who embody feminist ideals and stereotypes of the more modern world.
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.
In taking on the task of directing The Taming of the Shrew, Gregory Doran followed in a long line of directors that were faced with the challenge of how to mount one of Shakespeare's problem plays. The main issue of the play is how to deal with the brutal treatment of Katharine by Petruchio. It is male domination of the female through violence and starvation that eventual breaks Kate's will and tames her. The interpretive gesture reserved to the director is to decide how completely Kate becomes obedient to Petruchio and if she actually falls in love with him. There is also the general attempt to soften the harshness of the text through performance, using irony to soften the painful action taking place on the stage.
Have you ever had to act a certain way to get what you wanted? Imagine acting a different way for such a long time that eventually that becomes the norm. William Shakespeare showed this in the play The Taming of the Shrew, this idea became reality for Katherina. Beginning the story as a shrewish, and callous, Katherina would undergo various challenges that would eventually change her into a superior women. Petruchio would take up the task of taming her to better himself and everybody around her.
...se Katherine is a, in that time, controversial female character. Females were supposed to be sub missive creatures who listened to there masters, Katherine never listened to anyone which bothered people. She was also rude and violent, ladies were supposed to be polite and were told not to fight. One serious issue is that Petruchio tried such odd way to get Katherine to be have some were on the verge of torture. He did not let her eat or sleep and he forced her to agree with him or she could not do anything she wanted to.
Tragedy, irony and modernism are only a few interpretations of the valued play The Taming of the Shrew by the respected writer William Shakespeare. However, one of the most intriguing and popular of these analyses is comedy. Shakespeare is recognized for writing several plays with comedic genres, a few of which include Much Ado About Nothing and The Comedy of Errors. Comedy, being a complex genre, is composed of many different concepts. This particular play can be interpreted as a Shakespearian comedy, a screwball comedy, a farce, or slapstick.
"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 second reason the bond survives is that Petruchio is strong enough to accept the fact that Katherine has a mind and, more importantly he loves her for that reason. Petruchio cleverly weaves the relationship into the framework of society without compromising the integrity of the relationship. Petruchio does this by comparing Katherine’s at attitude to repulsive clothing. Carefully and calculatingly, Petruchio forges a relationship that is envied by all who witness it.
In “ Taming of the Shrew” By William Shakespeare, Katherine is tamed by Petruchio. In the story, Baptista Minola, negotiates for the marriage of his two daughters, Bianca and Kate. He sets up the story of The Taming of the Shrew by setting an important rule. His temperamental Kate must marry before his beloved and admired Biana. Katherine is described as a daunting shrew, because of her behavior of expressing what she thinks with harsh words, this causes men to be scared of marrying her. Bianca on the other hand is known as avid, and beautiful barely expressing how she feels in a demeaning matter, like Katherine. Baptista considers Katherine getting married as negligible because of her behavior, so he supports Bianca more in getting married.
William Shakespeare's comedy, The Taming of the Shrew illistrates the difficulty of trying to tame a headstrong, stubborn, and a high-spirited woman so that she will make a docile wife. The one attempting to tame Kate, the shrew, is Petruchio. They contend with each other with tremendous vitality and have a forced relationship. In contrast, there is another romantically linked couple who seemingly possess an ideal relationship. These young lovers, Bianca and Lucentio, share a love that is not grounded in reality, but in fantasy. These two sub-plot characters are stock characters and Shakespeare creates the irony of the play through the differences between the two couples. It is through his use of stock characters and irony that the differences between the two couples are revealed.
Baptista tells Petruchio to win her love. Petruchio acts and has a one to one debate with Katerina, Petruchio does not win her love but tells Katerina he will marry her anyways, resulting in Petruchio tricking Baptista in winning Katerina’s love” (Shakespeare, Act 2 Scene 1 Lines 110-308). The paraphrase examines Petruchio’s increased desire to marry Katerina after being told about the dowry or money involved by attempting to win her love and deceiving Baptista of achieving to win Katerina’s. In 10 Things I Hate About You, Patrick has an increased desire to attempt again and date Kat after being offered more money. Patrick takes the money and takes her out to different places, however, Patrick ends up falling in love with Kat and money began to no longer play a role for him showing a difference between the play Taming of the Shrew and 10 Things I Hate About You.
Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew can be interpreted as a cultural critique of expected female roles (both domestic and maternal) throughout the seventeenth century Elizabethan era—and quite significantly, female subjugation within the framework of marital politics. Modernized adaptations of Shakespeare's play, such as Franco Zeffirelli's 1967 film The Taming of the Shrew, Gil Junger's "10 Thing I Hate About You", and David Richard's, more recent, "Shakespeare Re-Told - The Taming of the Shrew" reinforce the text's central themes of domestication, identity (or loss of) and transformation. These films, however, allow Shakespeare's text to become "a means by which, in Alan Sinfield's words, ‘certain ways of thinking about the world may be promoted
In any one of William Shakespeare’s plays, he doesn’t make a point directly. Many scenes in the play have a double meaning, usually made up of irony. In the movie, Taming of the Shrew, there is irony used to critique the courtly love ideals. This play is a comedy, mocking the ridiculousness of the courtly love ideals. The character Petruchio is made into an unreasonable example of a “good” husband. Katherina is made into the shrewish wife, who has a bad temper, and who no one wants to marry. Society believes that any man would be crazy to pursue her. Before anyone marries the beautiful sister Bianca, her sister Kate must be married. A man by the name of Petruchio is found, who believes he can tame Kate. By showing the importance of the absurdness