In Shakespeare's play, the "Taming of the Shrew", Katharina Minola, known throughout the story as a stubborn 'Shrew', progressively transforms into a compliant wife. "The Taming of the Shrew" is one of William Shakespeare's great comedies. The play starts with an induction performed by a nobleman on a drunkard named Christopher Sly who arranged for an acting troupe to perform a play called the "Taming of the Shrew". The beautiful and elegant Bianca , younger daughter of Baptista Minola, has no shortage of admirers (Lucentio, Gremio and Hortensio) but her father insists that she will not marry until her shrewish sister, Katharina, is betrothed. Bianca's suitors persuade a money-seeker Petruchio to court her. The suitors pay for any costs involved and there is also the goal of Katharina's dowry. Petruchio marries Katharina and he carries Katharina off to his country house with his servant Grumio. Petruchio intends to browbeat Katharina into submission and he denies her food, sleep and her new clothes, whilst continuously singing her praises, thus Katharina is tamed. They return to Padua where Lucentio has won Bianca. At a banquet they wager on who has the most obedient wife. Each wife is issued with commands but only Katharina obeys and promptly lectures everyone on the importance of wifely submission. In the beginning of the play Katharina is shown as a 'shrew' who is stubborn and argues against most people, especially men, which is exhibited through her conversations with
The first comedic device used in The Taming of the Shrew is family drama. Katherina can’t find a husband she likes, and no man likes her. Bianca is her younger sister and wants to marry but can’t until Katharina does. This puts tension on their relationship and also their father’s. In this line, ““Are you so formal, sir? Well, I must wait. And watch withal, for, but I be
Katherina may be a shrew, but Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew does not truly show a study of how a selfish, spoilt individual is made to conform to society’s expectations, or be tamed into a ‘proper’ woman. At the end of the play, Katherina is not, necessarily, tamed - she just realizes what she must to do in order to get the things she wants. Two main examples of her submitting to Petruchio in order to achieve her desires are in Act 4, scene 5, (the sun versus moon scene) as well as Act 5, scene 2 (the kiss me kate scene and her final monologue).
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.
Taming of the Shrew is a romantic comedy written by William Shakespeare in the 1500’s. It takes place in the city of Padua, presumably during the Italian Renaissance. The major conflict of the play is ‘taming’ a hot-headed woman named Katherine and to overcome the rule her father holds on his two daughters where the eldest marries first. The script brings up a lot of attention in the feminist theory. But, Shakespeare’s play reflects on the archetypes of characters, situations, and symbols. These connections are made in the play to make the audience familiar with the text and provide a deeper understanding.
In the play, The Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio is a foolish nobleman who tames the character of Kate because she is a shrew. A shrew is ill-spoken woman who has a negative reputation in the Elizabethan period. Petruchio tames Kate by abusing her physically and mentally, Petruchio starves Kate and deprives her of any sleep, finally he humiliates her. Kate is forced under submission because of Petruchio trying to “...cure her wild and willful nature...” (Act 4, Scene 1, Pg. 10). Petruchio explains that all his abusing is because he loves her and for her own good, when in fact he is trying to break her down. The Taming of the Shrew is about the conflict between Kate and Bianca in which their father’s rule which does not allow Bianca to get married
In the play The Taming of the Shrew, men do quite absurd things to get what they desire. Petruchio, Lucentio, Hortensio, and Gremio all derive schemes to win the heart of the woman they choose. Throughout the play many characters create alternate personas to woo the one they love. However, one man, Petruchio, prefers to pursue his soon to be wife ingenuously. All of the ideas the men concoct are in hopes that Bianca or Kate might fall in love with them, whether or not they do fall in love is due to how well their suitors perform their acts of love.
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
In Shakespeare’s play The Taming of the Shrew, the main character, Katharina Minola is portrayed as a shrew. Her behavior emanated from the fact that a father who treated her with indifference raised her and there was a lack of a motherly influence in her life. “Shakespeare sketches her character with a depth the typical shrew lacks” (“The Taming and Comic Tradition” 1) so her behavior is a defense mechanism used to protect herself from rejection. Katharina “is aggressive and belligerent, but she recognizes her own repulsiveness and ultimately responds positively to love” (“The Taming and Comic Tradition” 1). Once Katharina meets Petruchio, her intended husband, her behavior starts to transform into that of a socially acceptable wife. Katharina’s metamorphosis in behavior is
This article delves into the different aspects of Shakespeare’s play “the taming of the shrew”. It summarizes how Petruchio, a gentleman of Verona, “tames” Katherina, the shrew. Petruchio uses reverse psychology until Katherina becomes an obedient and compliant wife. While that is going on, there is also a competition between the suitors of Katherina’s more desirable sister, Bianca. Also, the article details the many adaptations of the play such as film, opera, ballet, and radio. One of the many themes it mentions, a major one is that money has an amazing amount of power as well as gender politics. The amount of information in this article is astonishing however the source is not very trustworthy. Anyone using this article must be careful
Sexism is the stereotyping and discrimination based upon gender. Typically steered towards women, it has played a large part in not only our society today but in the past as well. In the play The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare, it is shown in the treatment of the women by their male counterparts. It is most prevalent in the way that fortune-seeking Petruchio goes about taming his aggressive and sharp-tongued wife Katharina. By examining Petruchio’s actions and Katharina’s reactions towards his efforts at taming her, once can see that the play is indeed sexist.
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
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.
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.