Taming Of The Shrew Character Analysis Essay

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.

In the play Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare, Shakespeare includes several appeals of pathos, ethos and logos. In the last passage of the book, Katharina speaks out to all of the characters with a speech. Katharina describes how she has changed into a person who looks to her husband as her lord, her care taker. The characters who listened to her speech seemed impressed on how she has finally changed her rude attitude and how she obeys her husband Pertruchio’s every word.

In this respect, the play is a typical romantic comedy. However, unlike other Shakespearean comedies, The Taming of the Shrew does not conclude its examination of love and marriage with the wedding. Rather, it offers a significant glimpse into the future lives of married couples, one that serves to round out its exploration of the social dimension of love. Unlike in Romeo and Juliet, inner emotional desire plays only a secondary role in The Taming of the Shrew’s exploration of love. Instead, The Taming of the Shrew emphasizes the economic aspects of marriage; specifically, how economic considerations determine who marries whom. The play tends to explore romantic relationships from a social perspective, addressing the institutions of courtship and marriage rather than the inner passions of lovers. Moreover, the play focuses on how courtship affects not just the lovers themselves, but also their parents, their servants, and their

Baptista was the father of two daughters; he was a wealthy man and could meet the expense of two respectable dowries. One of his two daughters was seen to be a shrew amongst the people of Padua, this therefore making it extremely difficult for him to find a suitor for her. Money therefore played an immense part in the marriage of Katherina. Without Petruchio turning up in Padua, looking for a wife it could have looked dreadful for Baptista, not being able to locate a suitor. “I come to wive it wealthily in Padua,” admits Petruchio. He himself along with Hortensio and Baptista are very money orientated. Hortensio talks about Petruchio saying, “will undertake to woo Katherina, yea, and marry her, if her dowry please.” He suggests that she is only worth marrying if the dowry is high enough.

Another suitor of Bianca is Gremio. Gremio is an old, wealthy man who wishes to pursue a life with Bianca. Gremio is one of the few suitors who does not disguise himself in order to woo her. Instead Gremio hires a Latin tutor for Bianca, which ironically is Lucentio or ‘Cambio’. Gremio turns out to be the most foolish of the suitors in the play. He not only lost the race in which to win over Bianca, but he helped another suitor steal her heart. Although Gremio was not successful with Bianca he and Hortensio came up with a plan to get closer to her. Their plan was to find a suitor for Kate, so Bianca was free to wed. Unfortunately that was Gremio’s only accomplishment in the novel. He ended up helping two couples get married. Gremio is also at a constant battle with Tranio which shows his impatience and confidence that he will have Bianca for his wife. “Youngling, thou canst not love so dear as I. Greybeard, thy love doth freeze. But thine doth fry. Skipper, stand back: ‘tis age that nourisheth.”(2:1:330-331) It seems that Gremio is truly in love with Bianca because he never stops fighting for her. Gremio was not the manliest when it came to achieving happiness with women. He was foolish, but dedicated.

The Taming Of The Shrew by William Shakespeare is an introduction in the everpresent battle of women to be loving and caring wives, while at the same time holding on to our independence. Its plot is derived from the popular 'war of the sexes' theme in which males and females are pitted against one another for dominance in marriage. The play begins with an induction in which a drunkard, Christopher Sly, is fooled into believing he is a king and has a play performed for him. The play he watches is what constitutes the main body of The Taming OfThe Shrew.

In Taming of the Shrew, the opening starts with an act of deceit. A drunk man comes into a bar and refuses to pay for his drinks. After one too many, he passes out on the floor and is carried home in a carriage by a lord. Once in the lord’s home, he wakes up and is tricked into believing that not only is he a lord, but that he has a wife and that they are watching a play which is how the book begins. Later in the play, Lucentio, a suitor for Bianca, disguises himself as a school teacher to get close to her. His manservant, Tranio, and himself come up with the ploy so that while they search for a man for Kate, Lucentio can win Bianca’s, heart. He was not the only one to use this idea, another suitor of Bianca’s also disguises himself as a teacher. However, it is Lucentio’s ploy that is successful and the two young people fall in love and agree to the marriage. Before they can be married, Bianca’s father needs to meet Lucentio’s father. However, instead of getting his real father, Lucentio finds a man on the street and gets him to act as though he is his father. Again, the ploy works and the two fathers meet and the marriage is arranged. Lucentio is no the only one who uses deceiving as a way to get married, Petruchio too deceives Kate and her father to gain marriage. First, he vows to deceive Kate by telling her the opposite of what he feels. For example, if she was ugly, he would call her beautiful, and if she was mean he would call her the sweetest person he had ever met. This, he believed would allow him to woo her successfully. It did not go quite as planned, but when Kate’s father came in to see Kate and Petruchio together, Petruchio made it seem as though Kate loved him and wanted to be married to him. His

William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew is an interesting story that demonstrates the patriarchal ideas of how a marriage is suppose to be according to society, what is acceptable of a woman's role in a relationship. It's a story that has many things to show for it's been remade, and remade, even slightly altered to better relate to the teenage audience.

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

   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

Also, Katherine herself apprehended the error of her ways, making the women feel sheltered and making the men feel self-assured about their dominant position in society. The audience presumably went home contented, because such a shrew was tamed, and could be tamed so well. Katherine’s soliloquy reinforced the moral values of the Elizabethan era, making the conclusion of the play more enjoyable and entertaining. The final scene of The Taming of the Shrew shows ”the triumph of the unconventional over the conventional”, it shows that Katherina and Petruchio’s marriage, which has started rather unconventionally, seems to have better chances of being a happy. Shakespeare speaks out in clearly favors of the unconventional concept of love present in the relationship between Petruchio and

We see the conversion of a woman with a foul tongue to that of a lady who can play her part well. It’s obvious by the end of the play that Petruchio and Katherine are not just husband and wife but a team. They place their trust in each other. He spent quite some time teaching her to trust him. He used the two most precious things of the time, Food and Sleep.

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.

Bianca was described as sweet and quiet. She never spoke out of turn, and was always obedient, qualities that men desired in their future wives. For the majority of the book, this is how Bianca acts, but the audience watching the play is able to see small parts where there is another side of Bianca a side that she keeps hidden from the males in her society. One clear example of this is in Act 1 Scene 1 when Bianca whispers to her sister Katherine so that no one else can hear her;

With regards to The Taming of the Shrew, it can be determined that the relationship between Baptista and his daughters is built on the boundaries put in place by gender roles. This becomes apparent when, at the beginning of the play, Hortensio and Gremio confront Baptista about his intentions regarding Bianca's courtship: