Taming Of The Shrew Research Paper

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

Baptista Minola, the heavy-handed father in The Taming of the Shrew, can be characterized as having difficulty expressing his love effectively to his daughters Bianca and Katherine. While Bianca is charming, tranquil, and stunning, Katherine, being the shrew of the play, is hostile, peevish, and quick witted. After raising both daughters until the day of their marriage, Baptista has been caught in the middle of their opposing characteristics. Understandingly, his actions to deal with this discrepancy can be viewed as cruel and tyrannical; however, he is a loving father that cares deeply for his daughters and their well-being. Many readers only consider Baptista’s concern for the marriage of his daughters as cruel and the amount of wealth they may inherit as greedy when describing his manner and personality, but he acts with logic in each situation and values the happiness of his daughters.

Love is an ever-changing concept which varies from one person to the next. Not all love is positive for some is toxic and destructive. Shakespeare’s 1590s play ‘taming of the shrew’ is a representation of mainstream society views and ideologies of the Elizabethan era. The play displays what women should do and not do. The play is a precise preservation of how females and males acted towards one another. Since the play has first been released ideas and beliefs over certain genders and their roles have changed. The play ‘taming of the shrew’ which once embodied a love story is now seen a misogynist story. The play has since been constructed into a few films. The most well-known films are the 1967 film rendering ‘taming of the shrew’ and 1999 loose adaptation ’10 things I hate about you’. The film ‘taming of the shrew’ was directed by Franco Zeffirelli and at the time of the initial release of the film, it was seen as a love story. Certain themes can be identified in each movie. These themes consist of equality and dominance, which is mainly between the two genders, gender roles and social status in society. When I watched the movie I believed it showed very misogynistic views towards women with little evidence of a love story. In contrast, the comparative film ’10 things I hate about you’, directed by Gil Junger, display evidence of a love story with few misogynistic characters. Evidence that is easy to identify in both films is equality and dominance between characters.

   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

The topic of transformation is focused on throughout Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew and can be developed into the themes of as time goes on people change, people are influenced to change, and force can cause change in others. Shakespeare’s characters experience transformation throughout the play and therefore create the related themes, these changes and transitions are an important part of life, this concept of change can be seen throughout our world today.

Most people know of at least of one shrew in their life. Yet they may not realize that their maybe more shrews in their lives that they think there are. In the book “taming of the Shrew” by William Shakespeare is about trying to tame Katherina, the shrew, to be able to wed Bianca. Although Katerina is the main shrew, she’s not the only one. Many can say that Bianca and Petruchio are as well.

Lauren Hays Mr. Clark Honors English P. 2 24 October 2014 Marital roles in modern society vs. Shakespeare “Whenever you’re in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude” (William James). Attitude played a major role in the way men treated woman in Taming of the Shrew. The virtues of love, marriage, and status were viewed differently in Padua then they are today.

Kate desires love, regardless of how mean and crude she begins. In act one, scene one, when Kate ties her sister’s arms, she questions Bianca of all of the suitors that are after Bianca. Bianca recognizes this cruel act as jealousy and a choice to be loved when she states, “is it for Gremio you do envy me so?”. It is not gremio or any other suitor that kate feels jealousy closer to; she feels jealous of Bianca and how every body, even their father, views her as the favored sister. Bianca is Katherina's more youthful, extra appropriate sister. While she is higher liked by most characters than Katherina, she has a slightly smaller position in the play. While she does talk, she shows herself to be smart, as while she flirts and trades witticisms with lucentio while he's "coaching" her. On the stop of the play, she refuses to return when referred to as via lucentio, showing with the aid of contrast how obedient Katherina has emerged as.

Two of William Shakespeare’s works, The Taming of the Shrew, and Twelfth Night, stand out particularly well in regards to his use of female characters in his plays. After examining these two plays, one will see that Shakespeare, though conforming to contemporary attitudes of women, circumvented them by creating resolute female characters with a strong sense of self. The Taming of the Shrew (TOS) is one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays, and has adapeted well into our modern era with multiple adaptations into popular movies such as Ten Things I Hate About You. Although, this work of Shakespeare is very well known and has received many praises, this particular play is very controversial in his treatment of women.

Shakespeare's historic essence of this play reflects the beliefs of the era that misogyny of women and that women should blindly obey and respect their husbands as contemporary to that time. The Taming of the Shrew offers no contemporary relevance in this day and time when women do what their husbands fail to do in nearly ever realm imaginable. In Shakespeare's era of writing, and even for a good time after it, men did what they were supposed to do. As time passed, men changed and women realized if they had to take work outside the home and still do all the work in the home, a demanding husband was but another one to cook for, clean up after, and cater to

The Taming of the Shrew is one of Shakespeare's earlier plays, written around 1592. During the time the play was written, the Renaissance was very much a patriarchal society. Men exercised strong control over the women of this time, and if these women resisted or complained, they were labeled as shrews. Shakespeare does not support this treatment of women and uses satire, a useful tool for pointing out flaws in society, to the audience into reconsidering its ideas and treatment of women.

Be she as foul as was Florentius’ love, As old as Sibyl, and as curst and

Silas Cooper a local and national actor and director now teacher, at NOCCA directed The Taming of the Shrew and used his professional acting knowledge to create such a diverse cast and unique adaptation of the play. The casting of Taming of the Shrew was very great to watch both of the leads Petruchio and Kate were black. Recently in the last 10 years casting with untraditional actors to play leads in Shakespearean plays are becoming the norm for productions which is really great to see more diverse theatre. After the final show on Saturday there was a sit back and discussion on the reasoning for doing the show this year as oppose to doing it some other year, Cooper express,” It was just right time and perfect opportunity to put on this show

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.

The Taming of the Shrew play, written by the well-known author William Shakespeare, is one of the most famous plays to be ever written in all of history. The play written between 1590-1592 had a great development of transformation that occurred throughout the play. William Shakespeare stated that one can not get what they want , by trying to change their human being and play along. A variety of characters in the story had experienced a transformation change, such as Lucentio, Tranio and Hitio. This allowed them to experience what it's like to change personality and acts when they needed too.