In her publication of A Vindication of the Rights of Women and Femininity, Mary Shelley states, “I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves” (Shelley 34). She desires to let women acknowledge that they need to take control of their own lives, and to not rely on a man for their success. This widely unaccepted message is not visible in The Taming of the Shrew. In the late 1590s, around the time William Shakespeare wrote the piece, women were scrutinized as the “weaker sex”, both physically and emotionally. This factor plays a huge contribution in the evident sexism scattered throughout the play. Shakespeare shows this mainly through his main character, Katherine, and through what she endures including an unwanted marriage, …show more content…
She is alluring, kind, serene, and deferential to her suitors and other men. Lucentio woos, “...I achieve not this young modest girl,” (1.1.158) when talking about Bianca because she fits the role of a ‘perfect wife’. To contrast, Katherine is known as the “wild-cat” (1.2.196), suggesting she is both malicious and untameable. People in Padua and beyond are cognizant of Kate’s reputation, and all spread rumors and talk behind her back. When Baptista decides to marry Kate off, nobody deduces that there would be a suitor that can take on a woman like Kate. When her father attempts with all his means to get free of Kate, one man remarks “I would not do it for a pot of gold” (Zeffirelli, William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew). Gremio pronounces that he would preferably take Kate’s dowry without the wife, and instead be “whipt at the high cross every morning” (1.1.132). He would rather be punished in front of everyone in the square market than marry Katherine. She is so undesirable to men because during this time in their society, it was unruly for a woman to be as blunt as Kate is. While Kate sometimes handles situations in the wrong way and is violent, she is the only women in the play that vocalizes the way she feels, and acts how she fancies. Kate is the only one that is testing for female and male equality, yet she is the one that is looked down on, even by other women. Shakespeare conveys how being …show more content…
The male is always superior to the wife, no matter the circumstances. During this time, a woman was expected to obey their husband, and not talk back if they had a different opinion than they did. A husband’s job was to make sure his wife stayed in line, and to provide for the family. At the wedding ceremony, Petruchio proclaims that “[Kate] is my good, my chattels, she is my house, My household stuff, my field, my barn, My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything” (3.2.230–32). Even though Kate is a a person, Petruchio looks down on her, calling her his property. He continues to degrade Kate, for example making Kate look stupid by having her call Vincentio Miss, and doesn’t stop until Bianca and Lucentio’s wedding reception. Katherine confesses, “Such duty as the subject owes the prince, Even such a woman oweth to her husband” (5.2.155–56). She finally bows down to Petruchio, calling him her prince. Even though Kate may have been lying throughout this speech so that Petruchio will have a kid with her and buy her things, it is still when Kate is submissive that he finally treats her like a person.
Today, women are treated a lot different than they were in this time period. Nowadays, people may be fond of Kate’s “hard to get temperament”, and she may charm guys instead of repulsing them. Women now rely on their own hard work, and recognize that they don’t need a spouse to be successful. They are no longer inferior to men, and
In Shakespeare's, "The Taming of the Shrew" the relationship between the sisters Katherine and Bianca appears to be strained with rampant jealousy. Both daughters fight for the attentions of their father. In twisted parallel roles, they take turns being demure and hag-like. Father of the two, Baptista Minola, fusses with potential suitors for young Bianca and will not let them come calling until his elder, ill-tempered daughter Katherine is married. The reader is to assume that meek, mild-mannered, delicate Bianca is wasting away while her much older, aging, brutish sister torments the family with her foul tongue. Katherine seems to hold resentment toward Bianca. Her father favors Bianca over Katherine and keeps them away from eachothers' torment. When gentlemen come calling, Bianca cowers behind her father and Katherine speaks up for herself. "I pray you sir, is it your will to make a stale of me amongst these mates?" (1.1.57-58)
In Shakespeare’s ‘The Taming of the Shrew’, the character Kate is the ‘shrew’ of the play. A shrew is a bad-tempered or aggressively assertive woman. In Elizabethan times being a labelled as a shrew may led to punishments and public humiliation. Modern day readers may look at Kate being labelled as a shrew and disagree as society today has changed since then and women are not inferior to men as they back then.
"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
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.
In the beginning, a lot of what we learn about Kate comes from what other people say about her. In Act I, she is only seen briefly and she speaks even less, but our picture of Kate is pretty clear. Shakespeare, sets up a teaching lesson, helping us to see the mistakes of our own judgment. When Baptista announces that Kate must marry before Bianca may take suitors, Gremio describes Kate by saying "She's too rough for me" (1.1.55). Later in the scene, Gremio reiterates his dislike for Kate, claiming she is a "fiend of hell" (88) and offering that "though her father may be very rich, any man is so very a fool to be married to hell" (124–126). He finishes by saying that to marry Kate is worse than to "take her dowry with this condition: to be whipped at the high cross every morning" (132–134). Hortensio, too, is quick to add to the situation, calling Kate a devil (66) and claiming that she is not likely to get a husband unless she is "of gentler, milder mold" (60). Tranio, Lucentio's servant, is perhaps the only man in this scene not to talk ugly about Kate, claiming she is either "stark mad or wonderful froward" (69).
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.
In Shakespeare's, "The Taming of the Shrew" the relationship between the sisters Katherine and Bianca appears to be strained with rampant jealousy. Both daughters fight for the attentions of their father. In twisted parallel roles, they take turns being demure and hag-like. Father of the two, Baptista Minola, fusses with potential suitors for young Bianca and will not let them come calling until his elder, ill-tempered daughter Katherine is married. The reader is to assume that meek, mild-mannered, delicate Bianca is wasting away while her much older, aging, brutish sister torments the family with her foul tongue. Katherine seems to hold resentment toward Bianca. Her father favors Bianca over Katherine and keeps them away from each others' torment. When gentlemen come calling, Bianca cowers behind her father and Katherine speaks up for herself. "I pray you sir, is it your will to make a stale of me amongst these mates?" (1.1.57-58) Bianca and Katherine dislike each other feverishly. Katherine torments Bianca with words and physical harm. She binds her hands, pulls her hair then brings her forth to her father and the gentlemen callers. Bianca denies liking any of the visitors and portrays herself an innocent that merely wants to learn and obey her elders. She says, "Sister, content you in my discontent to your pleasure humbly I subscribe. My books and instruments shall be my company, on them to look and practise by myself." (1.1.80-84) Because Katherine speaks freely and asserts herself she is labeled as "shrewish." When Hortensio describes her to Petruccio, he spews out that she is "renowned in Padua for her scolding tongue." ( 1.2.96) He gilds the lily further by clearly telling of her fair fortune if suitable man comes courting and wins her hand in marriage. Petruccio sees dollar signs and rushes onwards in grand dress and fluently gestures to court the gracious "Kate." When he first begins his ritual of winning the family and Katherine to his love, he is seeking his fortune in her dowry. The mention of her being at all undesirable does not put rocks in his path.
Hortensio, one of Bianca’s old suitors, also reaches Padua with his new wife, a wealthy widow. Everyone expects Katherine to be just as shrewish as she was before she was married to Petruchio. Even the widow refers to Katherine as a shrew. “Your husband being troubled with a shrew/ Measures my husband’s sorrow by his woe,” the widow states, calling Katherine a shrew and saying that she feels sorry for Petruchio (5.2.29-30). After the three women leave, Lucentio, Hortensio, and Petruchio wager that each of their wives is the most obedient. They each send for their wives, proving to be unsuccessful until Petruchio sends for Katherine. To everyone else’s astonishment, Katherine arrives obediently, and Petruchio wins the bet. Katherine then goes and fetches her sister and Hortensio’s widow wife. She reprimands them for not obeying their husbands. “Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper/ Thy head, thy sovereign, one that cares for thee/ And for thy maintenance commits his body/ To painful labor by both sea and land/ To watch the night in storms, the day in cold/ Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe” (5.2.162-167). She explains that a woman’s husband protects her and supports her, living a life of danger and responsibility. In return, she says that the husband asks only for his wife’s kindness and obedience, which is “too little payment for so great a debt” (5.2.170).
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.
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.
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.
In the play, Katherine is the oldest of the two daughters of Baptista. Baptista wants to marry off his daughters, even offering money, but he wants Katherine to be married before Bianca (his youngest daughter). There are plenty of acceptable suitors for Bianca, but Katherine only has one, Petruchio. Katherine is seen throughout the play as a disobedient wife, and Petruchio does his best to tame her into the compliant wife that their society is known to accept. His attempts to tame her sass and sarcasm are both mentally abusive and manipulative. Whether Shakespeare intended for this to be satirically mocking the culture that accepted type of torture or was just adding this into his play because it was the norm, is disputed. Shakespeare does
...st play, it is not sexist and demeaning towards women. Petruchio, Hortensio, and Lucentio may have bet on their wives compliance in some eyes, but after further analysis, they were actually betting on the trust between the couple. The reader must also take into account the time period the play was written in which was the 16th century, where women were usually not even allowed to go to school to be educated, and Bianca was having private tutors for her education. Kate was changed by Petruchio’s “taming” from the beginning to the end of the play, but at the end of the novel when Kate was called upon and made her speech, she was the happiest she had been in the entire story. There are however some sexist elements in the story, but just because there are certain characteristics of sexism in a play does not mean the play in itself is sexist and demeaning towards women.
...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.
When someone is a female their first thought should not be weak or nurturing, just as when someone is male their first though shouldn’t always be powerful. Unfortunately it has becomes so ingrained in societies mentality that this is the way that things work. The Taming of the Shrew is a past writing piece that expands on a mentality that is modern. The male gender cannot be put into this same constraint. Petruchio is the epitome of what society would describe a male as. He thinks he is in charge and always the superior to women. He expects Katherine to always do what he tells her to do, because he believes that is her duty as his wife. Moreover he should not be expected to do that for her. Furthermore, Bianca is what many would describe as the perfect woman. She is nurturing and she does not speak out against what she is told. When she does speak she always speaks like a lady. She exists merely for decoration in the home and to serve her husband. Katherine is the inconsistency in this stereotype on femininity. Her purpose in the novel originally is to rebel against this biased thought on female gender roles. Katherine is not afraid to speak out against the things that she is told to do. If she disagrees with something she will act on it and she is just as strong as the men in the novel; which is why many of the men actually fear her. Katherine is not submissive and does not believe that the only reason that she exists is to serve a husband. Katherine does not want to be just the damsel in distress, she wants to be in charge. At the end of the novel there is a switch in the personalities of Katherine and Bianca. This alteration provides the purpose of showing that gender is not something that someone can be confined in just because they were born a female. A woman can have many different traits and still be feminine. It is impossible to put femininity in a box because there are no real qualities for what