Summary Of The Taming Of The Shrew

I must and will have Katherine to my wife. (Act 2, Scene 1, Page 13)

In essence, all Petruchio did was teach Kate not to be so brash and rebellious. He showed her how awful her actions looked, and on her own, she made the decision to change her demeanor. She could have remained bitter and feisty, but it would have been in vain, and I believe that she realized that her actions had been no worse than the vanity and shallowness she witnessed in the people of Padua.

In the play, The Taming of the Shrew, by William Shakespeare, there is a recurring theme of people hiding their real identity. First, there are cases of deception, such as Tranio pretending to be Lucentio, Lucentio pretending to be a Latin tutor, Hortensio pretending to be a music tutor. More complex than these obvious examples of deception are Shakespeare’s clever uses of psychological masks. Several characters in the play take on roles that do not agree with their personalities. The psychological masks that they wear are not immediately apparent to the audience, or even to the characters themselves, until they are unmasked through the course of the play. Shakespeare mostly uses this device with the characters of Katherina, Bianca,

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.

“When love speaks the voice of all the gods makes heaven drowsy with the harmony,” Taming of the Shrew, Act IV, scene II.

The Taming of the Shrew (TOS) is a play by Shakespeare set in Padua, Italy in the 1590’s. The play was written in 1590 and has had several films, reproductions and appropriations created from it. One of these appropriations is the 1999 movie Ten Things I Hate About You, which is set in the late 1990’s in Seattle, U.S.A. Why has this story been so attractive to society? It is not only because Shakespeare has crafted a brilliant story, but because the themes have been relevant over the 4 centuries that the story has existed. Some of the messages explored in this essay are that both texts explore the social expectations of men and women. Another theme is that both Shakespeare and Junger identify that men are the ‘gazers’ and women are the

This week’s Lecture was focused on the third play in the four comedies book named “The Merchant of Venice”. This play was known for being controversial but also very interesting play that captured the attention of the viewers. Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” is set in Renaissance Venice, with a few scenes in a town called Belmont. The setting is important – Venice was one of the wealthiest towns in Europe, as it was right on the sea, with excellent shipping facilities for trading with the east. During this time, there was a large population of Jew’s in Europe, although 16th-century Venice was more tolerant of foreigners than Elizabethan England, Jews in Venice were confined to ghettos at the time Shakespeare wrote “The Merchant of Venice”. If a person compares “The Merchant of Venice”, to the other Shakespeare’s plays that have been covered in this class already and also to the ones that have not be covered yet, such as “As You Like It” or “Much Ado About Nothing”, some common features can be found throughout each of these plays. Some of the common features are: Multiple plots, Dual settings, Games/Trials/Practical Jokes/Music, Love Vs. Friendships/Multiple Marriages, Different types of relationships and a comic villain. Each of these features will be explained in greater details.

The relationships between servants and masters closely reflect the gender relationships in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Lucentio and Tranio's relationship as master and servant is an ideal of the Renaissance era according to "An Homily on the State of Matrimony." Tranio risks taking the place of his master because of his love for him and Lucentio always treats him with kindness and respect, almost like an equal. Though they are not involved romantically, Lucentio and Tranio fulfill these ideals better than any marriage in The Taming of the Shrew. Lucentio's relationship with Bianca reflects his role with Tranio: Bianca shows respect for Lucentio as he

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.

In order for two comparative texts to develop ones understanding of shared themes and ideas they must over come the boundaries of differing contexts and explore the strong parallels between them. Shakespeare’s play “The Taming of the Shrew” (1590-1592) was composed during the Elizabethan era in contrast to Gil Junger’s “10 Things I Hate About You” (1999) set around 1990s America. Although the diverse time periods their correlating plots are indicators of appropriation and pronounce an intertextual relationship. Both of these texts explore universal themes of gender roles and social hierarchy. Gender and roles is a prominent parallel throughout the two texts exploring the stereotypical standards that have been long withstanding in society. Likewise, society has developed the concept of social hierarchy to categorized people into different groups based on political, and socio-economic status. These themes have significant relevance to society and have reoccurred through to present day. Despite the differing context and era, an understanding of the corresponding ideas in these texts may be developed a comparative study.

Katherine is the title character (the “Shrew”) of the play. She is the eldest and unmarried daughter of Baptista. She is hot tampered and can slap people around her when they make her mad. Katherine Minola is a fiery, spirited women and seeing her such behavior, the people around her doesn’t quite know how to react with her or what to do with her. Most of the characteristics of Katherine is initially what people tells or think about her. Plays half part shows the negative side of Katherine. In Act I, we see her speak less but yet her behavior gets well established. After Baptista announces that Kate would would get marry before Bianca may take suitors, Gremio interpretes about Kate by declaring “ She’s too rough for me” (1.1.55). Even Hortensio speak bad about her and calls her devil (66). All speaks bad about Katherine and tells that no one would marry such a rude lady.

Love and friendship, sadness and pain, birth and death- all are proven to be constants throughout history. Even as centuries go by and cultures evolve or diminish, there will be concepts that never die out; ideas that are everlasting in time. One, who proved this, is William Shakespeare. His pieces were first created in the late 1500s; nonetheless, his writing is still relevant even today, almost 5 centuries later. In Greenway’s school play, the setting was moved to the 1970s, yet the play’s aroma withstood the changes. Therefore, changing the context of one of his plays, such as The Taming of the Shrew, minimally effects the appeals which can be seen through the consistency of the audience, his unfading persona, and universal message.

The play The Taming Of The Shrew was written by William Shakespeare between the years of 1590 and 1592. The purpose Shakespeare was looking for when writing this play was to list it as a comedy. There were many themes throughout the play, but the main theme portrayed was power. The ways Shakespeare portrays the idea of power was by showing the audience how the characters use, abuse, or subvert power in their relationships. The relationships Shakespeare used were between husband and wife as well as merchant and servant.

The main character in the play Taming of the Shrew is Katherine, who undergoes a major transformation throughout the play as she begins stubborn and ill tempered and ends a subservient wife. At the beginning of the play, her disobedience is marked by the sharp contrast between her behaviors and those of her polite and feminine younger sister. The only issue is that her sister’s many suitors will not have the option to marry her until she is married herself. Katherine is “tamed” soon after meeting Petruchio, who is misogynistic and equally as quick-witted as she is. Overall, the character of Katherine is so interesting because of her shift in values and goals throughout the play that make the audience question who she really is as a person.

I found this production of The Taming of the Shrew to be very interesting. Of all the Shakespeare productions I’ve seen, which has only been a few in high school, this has been the best. They were able to make me smile and laugh and even ponder social issues relevant to this time period. One reason I really liked this production is because I was actually able to understand the plot of the play. Additionally, they I was able to get a good picture of setting. Overall, the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival at Tulane did a fantastic job of present Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.