The Taming Of The Shrew By William Shakespeare Essay

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

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 Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare might appeal to Kalidasa because this play can be used to show the Hindu puranas and respect toward the deities. Kalidasa’s name means the “servant of Kali” which can suggest he is a follower of the deity Durga, who evolves in the form of Kali to destroy the demons. In the Taming of the Shrew, Katherine can represent the deity Durga/ Kali to reveal the two side of a female character. According to Hinduism, goddess Durga is the main force behind creation, preservation and destruction; similarly, a female like Katherine can very destructive by punishing her sister and being rude to her father. However, that same women, Katherine, can create a beautiful family bond and preserve the relationship with the force of love and affection. Furthermore, this play can be used to teach lessons toward the Indian society to treat women with respect and not consider them to be part of secondary status because of gender division or sexism. It can reveal to

   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

This long speech by Katherine at the end of the play shows a shocking transformation of her opinion on marriage, men, and the role of women and it takes everyone that hears it by surprise. The once very well known shrew is now stating that Bianca and

‘The Taming of the Shrew’ by Williams Shakespeare was written in the Elizabethan era. The play explores the use of characters to emphasise on gender roles and its relation to modern society. It demonstrates Katherina’s lack of choice, Bianca as the “ideal” woman and Katherina using her advantage of being a woman to get what she wants.

A recurring theme throughout Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew is the impact of man's societal pressure and how society portrays them is clearly evident. The idea of breaking a woman’s spirit and making her subservient to her husband is primarily harped on throughout the story. We see an example of this by how Petruccio responds to his newly wed wife Kate. Petruccio uses humiliation, starvation, and sleep deprivation at his country house to transform Kates fiery and hardheaded personality to his ideal wife.

Taming of the Shrew’s most unique character is the titular Shrew, Katherine Minola, whose defiant and oftentimes nasty personality makes her markedly different from the typical Shakespearean woman. Her abrasive and brash behavior defies traditional gender roles of the period and formulates a compelling character with deep intricacies and vast potential for interpretation. The last few scenes of the play mainly revolve around Petruchio, Katherine’s husband, and his attempts to “tame the shrew” and turn Katherine into a typical and subservient wife. In the final stretch of the play, we see Katherine as what seems to be a complete reversal of her original personality, performing a patriarchal monologue on the importance of obeying your husband.

The Taming of The Shrew took place in a time where social and cultural problems were on the rise. In Shakespeare’s time there were many social and cultural issues. Gender roles in a marriage and marriage itself are topics brought up in The Taming of the Shrew. The topic of marriage was something that was not arguable and was expected of all. Shakespeare agrees with these topics of his time through the way the characters Kate , Petruchio and Bianca develop emotionally throughout the play.

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.

Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew illustrates the relationship between gender and authority while defining its imbalance as simple social construct, suggesting that gender, more or less, exists merely in association and connotation. In characterizing masculine and feminine personality without regard to physical sex, he in turn reveals the illusion gender-roles cast in assumption and stereotype. Doing so, Shakespeare writes to comment on the position of women in Elizabethan society and their faculty of power in general. Given that inequality and the institution of gender-identity still exist and that current culture still clings to it, it follows that themes expressed within the play still presently apply. As adaptation, BBC renovates in modern version the Taming of the Shrew and keeps with it Shakespeare’s original themes, altering several other aspects of it, taking away detail from which the original play capitalizes.

Taming of the Shrew Essay In the Elizabethan Era, a shrew meant a woman who was ill-tempered, assertive, unpleasant, and was generally far from the ideal woman. Katherine Minola in William Shakespeare’s play, The Taming of the Shrew, is a headstrong, outspoken woman who is condemned for being a shrew by the residents of Padua. In Shakespeare’s time, the ideal woman was to be submissive, obedient, and silent - unlike Katherine whose fiery temper makes her seem undesirable, despite the fact that she is beautiful and wealthy. Bianca, Katherine’s younger sister, however, seems to fit the criteria for the perfect woman, and is sweet-tempered and innocent, thus, adored by all.

“The Taming of the Shrew” by William Shakespeare centers around the desire to tame a shrewish woman, Kate, for the good of others, her sister Bianca, and her father Baptista, it is a play that focuses on the theme of the “battle of the sexes.” Bianca and Kate's roles and development throughout the play help propel the plot forwards as one is tamed for the sake of the other, the other ends up switching roles and being the disobedient one by the end. Bianca is the more modest sister and thus more preferred by her father and sought out by suitors. “The one as famous for a scolding tongue/ As is the other for beauteous modesty.” (1.2. 244-245)

In Shakespeare’s comedy, Taming of the Shrew, the writer explores the idea of a woman being the property of her husband, and having to do everything that he bids her to do. Katherina, the eldest daughter of the Baptista, is well-known for her shrewish attitude. Whereas, her younger sister, Bianca, is the ideal woman-- this results to her having several suitors, and Katherina having none. Katherina eventually marries a man named Petruchio, and through a process, she becomes ‘tamed’. This play has been transposed into several film productions, Zeffirelli’s The Taming of the Shrew, and BBC and Rickards’ Shakespeare Retold; The Taming of the Shrew, are two examples. Between these two productions, Rickards’ version of Taming of the Shrew seems to

A dissembler is described by OED as someone who “dissembles; one who conceals his real purposes under a false appearance; one who practises duplicity; a deceiver; a hypocrite.” As such, the art of dissembling is a prominent concept in many of Shakespeare’s plays, particularly in Taming of the Shrew and Richard III. In these plays, the art of dissembling plays a pivotal part in the characters of each play; albeit, their execution varies from each other. Foremost, in Taming of the Shrew, whilst most of the characters are arguably considered as dissemblers, the most prominent one is Petruccio. As a dissembler, Petruccio uses language as a means to conceal his purpose and achieve his means – marrying a rich woman (and in this case, Kate) and eventually ‘taming’ her. He demonstrates his skill of dissembling when he expresses his desire of marrying Kate. Another example of a mastermind dissembler is Richard Gloucester in Richard III. In the play, Richard, similar to Petruccio, uses language to hide his true nature and achieve his goal of becoming the next king; his dissembling nature is evident in his. From these two dissemblers of Shakespeare’s plays, they demonstrate on how language is used as their tool of dissemblers and how powerful a tool it is in achieving one’s means.