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Essays on gender roles in taming of the shrew
Essays on gender roles in taming of the shrew
Essays on gender roles in taming of the shrew
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In Shakespeare’s ‘The Taming of the Shrew’, the character Kate is the ‘shrew’ of the play. A shrew is a bad-tempered or aggressively assertive woman. In Elizabethan times being a labelled as a shrew may led to punishments and public humiliation. Modern day readers may look at Kate being labelled as a shrew and disagree as society today has changed since then and women are not inferior to men as they back then.
Kate is often presented by Shakespeare more positively as a complex and vulnerable character due to the fact she receives abuse from other characters in the play, an example of this is: ‘”Mates”, maid? How mean you that? No mates for you unless you were of gentler, milder mould.’ This quote shows Hortensio picking up that Kate had referred to them (Gremio and Hortensio) as ‘mates’ however Hortensio criticises this saying she will have no ‘mates’ unless she was ‘gentler’ and ‘milder’ which is what the ideal woman would be at the time, a contrast to herself. He calls her a ‘maid’ which is an unmarried girl/woman often young and virgin (due to premarital sex being looked down on in this time period). This could be used to cause
The reason she starts getting upset in the opening is due to her father asking Bianca’s suitors if they will marry Kate instead as he needs to marry her off before Bianca due to her being older than Bianca. Kate’s state of aggravation seems fair as she is just standing up for herself and being who she wants instead of submitting to what society at the time wants from her. Shakespeare presents her as complex as she is deemed a shrew but it does not seem fair to just define Kate as that when it is not right that she is seen by society as a shrew when other people such as Bianca is shrewish in reality, yet seem like the definition of the perfect woman on the outside to the
“The Taming Of The Shrew” by William Shakespeare is a work of satire created to criticize the misogynistic outlooks of the 16th century. With this play, Shakespeare is trying to say that the idea and role of women in his society is deeply flawed and should be fixed, as well as to make other social commentaries, such as on the treatment of servants. Through exaggeration and parody, Shakespeare makes society look silly.
In William Shakespeare 's play, The Taming of the Shrew, was written in 1590’s to 1610. This time period was very hard for a women. The culture was very misogynistic, the culture demanded that a women
Over the past 400 or so years since Shakespeare wrote _The Taming of the Shrew_, many writers, painters, musicians and directors have adapted and reformed this play of control and subjugation into timeless pieces of art. In _10 Things I Hate About You_ and Kiss Me Kate from two very different times in the twentieth century, and paintings of Katherina and Bianca from the late nineteenth century, the creators of these adaptations have chosen to focus on the role of the two main female characters in the play. The ideas surrounding these women have changed through the years, from Katherina and Bianca simply being young women who deviated from the norm of Shakespeare’s time to women who embody feminist ideals and stereotypes of the more modern world.
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. In the beginning, a lot of what we learn about Kate comes from what other people say about her. In Act I, she is only seen briefly and she speaks even less, but our picture of Kate is pretty clear.
The Taming of the Shrew unravels to reveal a wild beastly Katharine lacking respect for her family, herself and others around her. Kate is a very outspoken and vulgar woman without respect to authority. Katharine, although depicted as a beautiful woman quickly becomes the talk of Padua. Kate has found that if she is loud and obnoxious she can have her way. She screams and grunts and pushes those who she does not get along with. The general character of Katharine seems to be that of a small child.
"Women have a much better time than men in this world; there are far more things forbidden to them." -Oscar Wilde. This quote embodies the fight over gender roles and the views of women in society. Taming of the Shrew deals with Kate and Bianca, two sisters who are at the time to he married off. However, suitors who seek Bianca as a wife have to wait for her sister to be married first. Kate is seen as a shrew because she is strong willed and unlike most women of the time. In his 1603 play The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare enforces traditional gender roles and demonstrates how little say women had in society. He accomplishes this through the strong personality of Kate, Baptista 's attitude towards his daughters as transactions, and
The rest of this first conversation between Kate and Petruccio is riddled with sexual innuendos, clever word choices and it is this feature of the dialogue that can easily lead readers (or viewers in the case of a stage performance) to see this play as a farce. To further exemplify the wit and absurdity of the Petruccio/Kate dynamic, one could look at a scene later in the play where
The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare is a play that is ahead of its time in its views toward gender roles within society. Katherine is a woman who is intelligent, and is not afraid to assert her views on any given situation. She is paired with another obstinate character in Pertuchio. The marriage formed between the two is a match made in heaven for two reasons. First, because Katherine is strong enough to assert her views, and more importantly, she realizes when she should assert them.
The Taming of the Shrew is one of the earliest comedies written by William Shakespeare. The Taming of the Shrew focuses a great deal on courtship and marriage. Especially the life after marriage, which was generally not focused on in other comedies. Notably, the play focuses on the social roles that each character plays, and how each character faces the major struggles of their social roles. Which plays into one of the most prevalent themes of The Taming of the Shrew. The theme of how social roles play into a person’s individual happiness. This is displayed through the characters in the play that desperately try to break out of the social roles that are forced upon them. This exemplified through the character, Katherine, an upper-class young maiden-in-waiting, who wishes to have nothing to do with her role.
In the beginning of the play it can be determined that everyone in town feels as if Kate is a rude, disrespectful womans and it was stated that,“To cart her rather, She's too rough for me” (Shakespeare, Trans. 2005, 1.1.55). Obviously if no one will marry this lady she must not act like a lady. But throughout the story, she becomes unwillingly married to Petruchio who teaches her by starving her and restricting her from doing what she would like she begins to listen to her husband petruchio. Not only does Petruchio notice this but everyone as well does to, “for she is changed as she had never before” (Shakespeare, Trans. 2005. ….).
When confronted with suitors, Baptista declares that no man should marry Bianca until Kate is wed. Not soon after this announcement from Baptista one of the main suitors, Hortensio is reunited with an old acquaintance, Petruchio. From what Petruchio explains to Hortensio his arrival in Padua is of selfish intensions. He tells of his father’s recent passing and the substantial inheritance that followed. The inheritance is not enough for a man like Petruchio and so he “come to wive it wealthily in Padua;/If wealthily, then happily in Padua. ”(I.ii.76-77).
As their relationship continues Kate shows little progression in Petruchio's eyes. So Petruchio decides that the more Kate resists conforming to an obedient woman, the more he manipulates her by playing mind games. However, Petruchio turns to forms of domestic abuse as a remedy for Kate's behavior, “The more my wrong, the more his spite appears. What, did he marry me to famish me?” ( Act 4 Scene 3).
This is a trait of the stereotypical damsel. When Othello hits her in public, she does not get angry with him but begins to cry. " 'Tis very much. Make her amends, she weeps." She is weak because she is young, therefore she puts Othello on a pedestal which is unhealthy and proves that she is a feeble woman.
A Shakespearean scholar expanded on this, “The play enacts the defeat of the threat of a woman’s revolt; it does so in a comic form – thus so offers the audience the chance to revel in and reinforce their misogyny while at the same time feeling good” (Gay). The Taming of the Shrew at many points is just praising the men in the novel despite their behavior and putting down the women for being anything but perfect. The novel makes the actions happening comedic and the reader does not get upset at the things happening, but in reading further into it and comparing it to modern day, it is not hard to see the plain and simple abuse. Although gender roles are still prominent in today’s society, they are toned back. In contemporary versions of The Taming of The Shrew, such as 10 Things I Hate About You and Kiss Me Kate, the character Kate is always mitigated.
Due to the patriarchal society of the Elizabethan era, women were expected to succumb to men and follow their orders. Shakespeare created Katherina in order to challenge Elizabethan society’s view that a dominant woman was a symptom of disorder . She has little respect for men and speaks bluntly A prime example of this is when she tells Hortensio that she will, “Use you like a fool.” Katherina employs the use of mockery, violence and a rhyming couplet in order to indicate her disdain of Hortensio. The simile also serves to demonstrate that she does not...