Love is one of the most powerful things in this world. People will go to great lengths to achieve another’s love. From youth we have been showered with tales of true love’s kiss and of Prince Charming breaking the Evil Queen’s curse. Time and again, we are made to see the power of love. In the play, “The Taming of the Shrew” by William Shakespeare, the renowned playwright takes love deeper than just passion. Shakespeare goes under the surface of love, all the way to its core. The story truly begins as Baptista Minola’s two daughters are readied for marriage: Bianca the sweet and innocent; Katherina the shrewd and curst. Men gravitate towards beautiful Bianca and flee when Katherina appears. Hortensio, a good friend of the main protagonist, Petruchio, wants to marry Bianca, in order for that to happen, Hortensio must get Petruchio to marry Katherina. Yet, Petruchio knows what he is getting himself into and he wisely sees past Katherina’s prickly outer shell. He proves that the Katherina isn’t what everyone in Padua thinks she is. Petruchio exposes the superficial problems in his society and demonstrates that respect and love are one and the same. Furthermore, Petruchio’s determination and heart allows him to woo the girl, marry her and activate the Taming of the Shrew.
Pick up lines don’t all necessarily work. “Your eyes are as blue as window cleaner.” Some may make you blush and others can make you walk away, giggling. As Petruchio knows, it is not the line that leads to success; it is confidence. “Why came I hither but to that intent? Think you a little din can daunt mine ears? Have I not in my time heard lions roar Have I not heart the sea, puffed up with winds, Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat? Have I not heard great...
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...ss does not just provide him with the ability to charm women, merely for love; rather, he does use his wisdom to benefit those he loves, especially Kate. Shakespeare does not just acknowledge valuing others but, hints on superficiality in societies. This places all the magazines and cosmetics in the spotlight. Telling not just young but everyone in general, how to act, look and be. Petruchio and Kate’s marriage brings a new period of happiness and joy to them and their family and friends. In “The Taming of the Shrew”, happiness was found in the very thing people overlooked. Love brought out the very best in what seemed like the very worst. As reasonable people in a society, skip the negativity and discover the positivity because the bad is just not worth it.
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William, and Roma Gill. The Taming of the Shrew. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1990. Print.
“Don’t waste your love on someone who doesn’t value it.” In the play Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare exposes the life of two young lovers in the Renaissance period fighting for something they cannot live without; each other. Although fate takes its toll, the everlasting feud between two families, conditional love by parents, and the irresponsibility’s of father and mother like figure are the main causes in the death of Romeo and Juliet. The idea of love is something that is valued in this play from many different aspects of characters, lines, and scenes. Shakespeare leaves the minds of readers soaring over not why it happened, but who was at fault.
During the Elizabethan era marriage was like a business contract, if the money is there then so is the signature. Love was never a part of the play and this showed in both Hortensio and Petruchio, who Shakespeare uses to expose this superficial approach to the supposedly romantic notion of marriage.
This play has many themes of patriarchy concerning the roles of males and females in a marriage, the authority of fathers over their families, husbands over wives, and men over women (Bloom 13). In the title alone, there's the indication of the husband over the wife, the "taming" of the shrew (16), and the word shrew that is chosen to describe Katherine is somewhat demeaning. In modern day society there is no such boundaries put on women. There should not be one party who overpowers the other one. It is a marriage, a bond that is shared, and each should be respected in the same way. Today, women and men are equals in a marriage, or at least in the United States. Women are no longer as oppressed as they once were. This play is rather primitive on the views of women in society.
The ‘too rough’ character of Katherine, is displaced within society, and isolated in the domestic space. (Shakespeare, 1982:109) She disappoints in conforming to the mould of a demure obedient maiden, and is thus rejected by her society. Her ‘shrewish’ behaviour leaves her to be deemed incompetent to marry, or be accepted as a woman, as she is not of a ‘gentler, milder, mould.’ (Shakespeare, 1982:109) Crocker highlights that, a shrew ‘is ...
After his first encounter with Bianca he is describing how he feels to his servant Tranio how she makes him feel “Tranio, I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio”(). He is very plainly exaggerating how he feels, that his very being is on fire and that he will die if cannot have Bianca. This in contrast to how Petruchio expresses his feeling of how he really feels about Katherina, the object of his courting, “Hortensio, peace. Thou know’st not gold’s effect. Tell me her fathers name, and tis enough, for I will board her, though she hide as loud as thunder, when the clouds in autumn crack.”() Petruchio has no problem showing his real intentions for marrying someone, and how he will treat said daughter no matter how unpleasant she is. Petruchio is much less worried about having to be compatible or in “love” with who he marries as much as how he will benefit from the arrangement, while Lucentio is concerned with being in “love’ and living happily ever after with
Wonder, for a moment, what Shakespeare means when he uses the word “love”, if it really does exist in any of the relationships in this play, particularly between Petruccio and Katherine. Is love not a certainty?
In Shakespeare time, marriage was seen as a wealthy and social commitment and didn’t involved love. In the Elizabethan Era, women were believed to be inferior to men and were expected to obey men without exceptions. Marriage was seen as business relationships were money was involved, this explained the relationship between men and women and their interests in marriage. Marriages between wealthy families were very common in that time, and were expected to increase the family fortune. For marriage women were expected to have their own ‘dowry’ which in that time was their money and properties they inherited after marriage. However, in their marriage the women lose all their possessions and came to be their husband’s properties. A good example of a marriage done by social commitment is the marriage between Petruchio and Katherina. The only reason Petruchio wants to be with her is because of her money. As a result this shows how men show no romance towards women.
The Taming of the Shrew, by William Shakespeare, deals with marriage. The ideas explored are primarily shown through the characters of Petruchio and Katharina. We are introduced to the trials and tribulation's which present themselves in their everyday lives. The characters bring up a traditional concept of male domination. Through the play we see the need for domination through Petruchio, and the methods he uses to dominate. While these ideas of male domination have remained a constant throughout the years, however recently there has been a change toward equality.
Shakespeare, Wiliam, and Sylvan Barnet. The Taming of the Shrew. . Reprint. London: New American Library, 1998. Print.
During The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare has used pleasure and pain in order to tell the story of Petruchio and Katherina’s courtship. This is problematic for modern day audiences, as they do not find the courtship methods that Petruchio employs to woo Katherina particularly comical. However, it could be argued that Shakespeare crafted The Taming of the Shrew precisely for this reason, to feature his views on patriarchy and to make the audience see what was happening through a new perspective. The Elizabethan audience would have been shocked at the methods used in order to achieve the taming, even though it was well within a man’s right to discipline his wife if she was deemed unfit. From the very beginning of The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare indicates that this play will not follow traditional rules of decorum, and that it is intended to both give pleasure and cause pain in order to make both Elizabethan and modern audiences take note of his underlying message.
Shakespeare’s story, Love Labour’s Lost, focuses the story on the endearing lust of men. Women are a powerful force, so in order to persuade them men will try to use a variety of different resources in order to attract the opposite sex. Men will often use their primal instincts like a mating call, which could equivocate today to whistling at a woman as she walks by. With the use of lies to tell a girl what she wants to hear, the musk cologne in order to make you appear more sensual, or the cliché use of the love poem, men strive to appeal to women with the intent to see his way into her heart. William Shakespeare is a man, who based on some of his other works, has a pretty good understand and is full of passion for the opposite sex. Nonetheless, whether it had been honest love or perverse lust, Shakespeare, along with most men, aimed to try to charm women. With keeping this understanding of Shakespeare in mind, his weapon of choice, to find his portal way into a woman’s heart, was his power of writing.
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
Shakespeare, William. _The Taming of the Shrew_. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Ed. Dean Johnson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. 142-171.
...ironic use of manipulation before and after the wedding, Petruchio is able to tame Kate. Or so he thinks. The only real change is that Kate agrees with him, but she only does this to get her way. Therefore she is manipulating him by pretending that he has been able to tame her. He has not tamed her, because she also utilizes the art of manipulation. Before, Kate’s only defense against patriarchy is to be outspoken; now, she negotiates her own sense of power within patriarchy by using manipulation. Shakespeare’s critic of the patriarchal social structure is therefore just, because not only are women denied the same legal power as men, but their manipulative power is also disregarded and considered a weakness. Therefore women are not to be blamed for utilizing this powerful form of control, because that is what the patriarchal social structure forces them into.
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).