Taming Of The Shrew Interpretation

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,

Petruchio displays his greediness and thirst for money. Petruchio, when talking about his future wife, says he wants “‘One rich enough to be Petruchio’s wife, As wealth is burden of my wooing dance’” (I. ii. 53-54). This quote essentially proves how Petruchio cares a great deal about wealth and riches. He values money over personality and even beauty in his future wife. All Petruchio looks for in a woman is how great her dowry is. Furthermore, Petruchio thinks that “‘If wealthily, then happily’” (I. ii. 63). He thinks that money creates lasting joy, and that money is the only source of happiness. He is purely materialistic, as he is ignorant to other things that can make him happy, such as true love or even a family. Lastly, Petruchio bluntly says to Katherine’s father, Baptista, “‘Then tell me, if I get your daughter’s

In The Taming of the Shrew, the concept of love is a means of emotional manipulation, and manipulation is nothing more than a means of control between men and women. William Shakespeare critiques the patriarchal social structure by ironically employing the manipulative stance Petruchio takes towards winning Katherine as his wife by charming her with words and manipulating her psychologically, and then taming her after their marriage through legal, physical, financial, and psychological control and manipulation. Though Petruchio may think he yields power over his wife, Katherine uses obedience as a tool of manipulation and has the control of the household, as can be seen

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

A comedic story can be summed up as one thing; a hero who triumphs over evil and wins the day. In these tales, our main character encounters around one hardship and overcomes it with much ease. The ancient Greek playwrights had a similar view on comedic tales: in order for something to be a comedy, the main character must reach a positive outcome. So no matter what comes their way, our hero will be in a better spot than he was at the beginning. Well-known comedies include A Midsummer Night 's Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, and Cyrano de Bergerac. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Taming of the Shrew, the main character achieves their goal with few hardships. Yet, in Cyrano de Bergerac, our main character’s ambitions are never

Women in the era of Queen Elizabeth I were often portrayed through stereotypes such as, “The Good and the Badde” by Nicholas Breton. In this work women have desired traits such as loyalty, obedience, and innocence. Undesirable traits would be just the opposite, disobedience, raunchiness, treachery, loudness, and being outspoken. The play, “The Taming of the Shrew” by William Shakespeare, plays heavily to these stereotypes with the two female main characters; Bianca and Kate. Whereas Kate plays the Un-quiet one in the beginning, but transitions to more of a quiet one or the good wife while Bianca plays The Virgin.

Examine the different ways in which Shakespeare presents the attitude towards marriage in the play, ‘The Taming of the Shrew.’

Imagine you are women who has a strong heart and does not get down easily, but you are constantly put down by men. This scenario happens almost every day to women and they do not know why men do this to them. The reason that I think men do this is because they have been socialized this way to get a girl and they push down a girl to fulfill their own insecurity. Men from 400 years ago also used to push down women and girls, which I think started this social act of putting women down between some guys. A strong women who was pushed down by most of the men in her life in The Taming of the Shrew was Katherine.

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

Throughout the last three Shakespeare plays that we have read and analyzed I have continuously found an idea of power roles and a fight for dominance to reappear frequently. In The Taming of the Shrew, there is a clear power dynamic between Petruchio and Katerina that dominates the show’s plot, as well the characters’ relationship. From the beginning of the play, it is clear that Kate will not easily relinquish the power she has obtained in her family, which, in my opinion, is one reason why she has a hard time imagining herself in a marriage. With her mother gone, Kate has taken on this role of dominance over her father and her sister and neither have attempted to challenge her. Kate is the clear “matriarch” of the Baptista household, and

As the play continues, we learn even more about Kate. For example, when Kate and Petruchio go back to Baptista’s, Kate begins to see how Petruchio operates. She learns that if she does what Petruchio says, even if she knows it is not true, she will get something she wants out of it, like going back to her father’s house. Petruchio test Kate when they meet the real Vincentio on the road and he asks Kate if she has ever seen a finer young women. Knowing what he is up to, Kate shows her amazing wit and decides to play his game. She has figured out that Petruchio has a method to his madness and if she plays her cards right, their relationship can be a partnership with a series of actions and rewards.

Battle of the Sexes would have been another appropriate title for this play because the entire play is women verses men, men verses women. This battle of the sexes shows no boundaries between the rich and poor, young or old, man or women. The basis of all the rivalry stems from the fact that the men in this play look at the women as if they were objects, instead of human beings with feelings. This theory that women are merely objects creates an environment that the women have to adapt to and survive in and the environment of a person will depict what he or she will become, resulting in a battle between the sexes.