Too Foolhardy In The Taming Of The Shrew

The Katherina that gives the final speech in The Taming of the Shrew is quite a departure from the Katherina we were introduced to in Act I. This new Kate is modest, quiet and obedient. All of these qualities were not present until Act V. Such a profound personality change prompts the questions how this happened and what purpose do her changes serve?

Petruchio wears the psychological mask of a guy who only has eyes for money. He makes his mask clear to the reader when he tells Hortensio to “wife wealthily” adding “you don’t know the power of gold.” after being told about Katherina’s bad behavior, not to mention her temper. It appears that Petruchio marries Kate for her money, but immediately starts to “kill her with kindness”. He begins going so by depriving her of food and sleep because he claims that neither the food from the kitchen nor the bed is good enough for her. Petruchio puts on a show of bad temper towards his servants for every fault, showing Kate what it is like to live with a bad-tempered person. For the first time in her life, Kate finds herself trying to get someone else to control their anger. Petruchio also shows Kate that she will get the things she wants when she learns to agree with what her husband says. By treating Kate in this manner, Petruchio seems cruel, but there is a reason for it. If he were truly interested only in money, he could have left Kate at home and gone out on his own. In the end, his efforts to improve his wife have worked. He improves Kate’s life, so that she does not continue to live an unhappy life. Because of Petruchio, Katherina the shrew is happily married in the end, and comes to be a good example to

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).

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.

Kate and Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew An exploration of the way Shakespeare presents the characters and relationships of Kate and Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew. The relationship between Kate and Petruchio is central to the development of The Taming of the Shrew, as both characters clearly represent and are centrally involved in the main theme of the play, the taming of the "shrew", Kate.

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

Who is primarily in control of Kate's actions in William Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew? Is Kate primarily controlling her actions, or do other characters in the play control her? If you just read through the play, but don't study it in-depth, it appears that Kate is controlled by other characters' actions towards her, but is this actually the case? Isn't it very possible that Kate is actually in control of all her decisions, but is just strongly influenced by others? After studying the text in-depth, you can see for yourself that although Kate is strongly influenced by others, she is the one who actually makes the decisions to act in the manner in which she

Kate’s ending monologue seems to show the audience how much she has changed, however some critics think this monologue could be seen as sarcastic, which, arguably, would fit in much more with her character than the apparent sudden change in heart. When Katherine speaks about being a wife she says “when she is forward, peevish, sullen, sour, and not obedient to his honest will, what is she but a foul contending rebel and graceless traitor to her loving lord?” it could definitely be construed as sarcasm, as she is largely describing herself or how she acted before, and in calling Petruchio her “loving lord” she seems scornful as he has been anything but loving towards her and earlier in the text she thinks of him as a fool.

Kate exemplifies women as she is berated in terms of being silenced, physically abused, and brainwashed throughout the course of the play. The tragedy about her force into submission is that Kate is a strong-willed girl. Kate’s strong willingness is unacceptable in the town of Padua where she resides. To the residents of Padua, including her father, Kate is nothing more than a shrew: a bad tempered, defiant, “fiend of hell” whom no man could ever desire as a wife (1.1.90). The only man who steps up and offers to Kate as a bride is Petruchio.

In Shakespeare’s comedy, “The Taming of the Shrew”, the author depicts the subjection of a willful woman to the will of her husband. 2 The female protagonist in the play, Kate, has a shrill tongue, a hot temper and irrational attitude giving her the reputation of a “shrew”. The first way Shakespeare portrays marriage in this play is by showing the female subject to being married as the victim who is passed from her father to the suoiter of her father’s choosing. In “The Taming of the Shrew”, Kate is seen as an object in her courting and marriage to Petruchio .

This story also depicts that a woman is not suppose to be strong and opinionated. Kate is viewed by most suitors as undesirable because she speaks her mind and doesn't let the male population walk all over her (Dolan 32). She is very precautious of the intentions of the men that claim they would like to marry her. Throughout the story it's made clear that Petruccio's objective is to "tame" Kate so that she will be suitable to be a wife. It's not that it's in her nature to be mean but she has a different that on the role of a wife. She indeed believes that she should be good to her husband and do all that things that are expected of her but feels that it should be deserved. Her husband needs to be worthy of all of her affection and attention. Not only that, he needs to love her in such a way that makes her want to be a good woman to him (33).

In the story "Taming of The Shrew" by William Shakespeare, we see the daily life of characters living in the Italian town of Padua. In this story, Lucentio brings his servants, Biondello and Tranio, to Padua. Soon, Lucentio sees a beautiful woman named Bianca which shifts his focus. The only problem is that Bianca can't get married until Kate get married due to a rule made by their father, Baptista Minola. At first, this seems like it is not a possibility to Bianca, as Kate is considered the "Shrew" and seems to not want to change her ways. Although she acts like this at the beginning of the book, we begin to see big changes throughout the book. These changes occur because Kate is a dynamic character, and there are many examples to prove this.

The relationship between Kate and Petruchio is completely different from the love of Bianca and Lucentio. "Kate is a neglected, hurt, and humiliated daughter who disguises her grief from herself as well as others with a noisy shrewish temper" (Craig 342). She has a fiery disposition and a reputation for reacting violently to people. The challenge of capturing her is Petruchio's real attraction to her. He can be seen as a rough, unfeeling, greedy, "swash-buckler" who cares nothing for Kate's feelings (so long as she has money). "

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.

Also, another leading character in the Merchant of Venice was controlled by her father, Jessica. But she couldn't be controlled, she eventually did what she wanted and proved to be a modern woman. Similarly, in the Taming of the Shrew, Kate is expected to marry the man her father, Baptista chooses and she has no freedom and choice of her own will. However, in the Taming of the Shrew, Kate is also being called property by her husband, Petruchio. Petruchio says that, "She is my good, my chattels, she is my house, My household stuff, my field, my barn, My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything;" Not only her father but her future husband doesn't respect her and calls her everything but his wife. Almost all of the woman in Shakespeare's play were treated as property, here you can see Portia and Kate, this clearly means that Shakespeare also agrees with this type of behaviour towards woman and that is why he always shows this behaviour towards the main female protagonists of the play. This type of behaviour towards woman was very common and both these plays have similarly shown how.