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Analysis Of Taming Of The Shrew And Othello

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INTRODUCTION
Both Taming of the Shrew and Othello Shakespeare present a variety of relationships which dramatise abuse against women. In Taming of the Shrew Petruchio’s attempts to reform Kate to make her the ideal housewife can be interpreted as a form of domestic abuse. Not only does he withhold necessities such as food, he places her in isolation, and even plays mind games with her to such an extent that she is fearful of defying him - creating a relationship of dependence. In Othello too, there are two different types of abusive relationships that have the same outcome - a husband feels so betrayed by his wife that he subjects her to a barrage of verbal abuse, ultimately seeing no option but to murder her.

METHODOLOGY
In order to …show more content…

Early modern marriage could be likened to a financial trade which was mutually beneficial to both parties. Therefore in Othello, upon learning of his daughter’s clandestine marriage, Brabanzio’s refers to Othello as a ‘thief’ , because he considers Desdemona ta possession which he believed was his to trade but has been ‘stol’n’. Similarly in Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio regards Kate as a mean to a dowry as he states that he could put up with all her faults provided there was ‘money enough’. Furthermore, during the wooing scene with Kate he expresses his intention to change her into the ‘other household Kates’. This term has been interpreted by the scholar Natasha Korda as Petruchio’s assertion over Kate, she states that ‘Cates are thus by definition … commodities’ and the wordplay on the name Kate suggests that he simply views her as another household object. The fact that women were viewed as commodities and objects and not humans is an indicator of why they were subject to domestic abuse.

ANALOGIES OF MARRIAGE
There were two main analogies of marriage in the early modern period both of which reiterated the husband’s position as the head of the household, and the rest of the members as subordinates. The first was the religious analogy between the Church and a marriage. In order to research this, I read some verses from the Bible which indicated that married couples should use the relationship between Adam and Eve as a guide for a

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