Plato argued that comedy blends pain with pleasure. How do you respond to this view in reference to The Taming of the Shrew? Has Shakespeare crafted The Taming of the Shrew so that the audience feels both emotions?
During The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare has used pleasure and pain in order to tell the story of Petruchio and Katherina’s courtship. This is problematic for modern day audiences, as they do not find the courtship methods that Petruchio employs to woo Katherina particularly comical. However, it could be argued that Shakespeare crafted The Taming of the Shrew precisely for this reason, to feature his views on patriarchy and to make the audience see what was happening through a new perspective. The Elizabethan audience would have been shocked at the methods used in order to achieve the taming, even though it was well within a man’s right to discipline his wife if she was deemed unfit. From the very beginning of The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare indicates that this play will not follow traditional rules of decorum, and that it is intended to both give pleasure and cause pain in order to make both Elizabethan and modern audiences take note of his underlying message.
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...
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In conclusion, Plato argued that comedy blends pain with pleasure and Shakespeare has blended these two elements in order to challenge the Elizabethan audience’s view of women. The Elizabethan audience would have been able to see this by the fact that Petruchio is not serious about the taming because he does not use physical violence against Katherina. However, modern audiences would view this very differently as Petruchio resorts to psychological torture, which affects Katherina much more. The play is clearly a comedy as the characters are one-dimensional and are mostly static, meaning that the play was designed to be unrealistic. However, there is a definite element of cruelty that runs throughout the play that is used in order to make both modern and Elizabethan audiences take notice in order to challenge society’s treatment of women.
“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 the play The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare, Petrucio recognizes, respects and desires Katherine’s strength of character. Petrucio is a clever man who sees beyond facades because he uses them himself. (II, i 46) (II, I 283 - 89) He is stimulated by Katherine’s sharp tongue and harsh actions. He proves this many times throughout the play.
In William Shakespeare's comedy, The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare reveals Hortensio as having a degrading tone towards Bianca showing that he does not commend her. Shakespeare uses diction and syntax to depict the difference between true love, and the absurd love that men believe to be real in this play. The first way Shakespeare displays this tone is through the diction Hortensio uses as he is talking with Gremio about competing for love from Bianca. After Kate’s tantrum, Baptista explains to the suitors how they cannot marry Bianca until Kate is married. Hortensio exclaims to Gremio that, “he who runs fastest gets the / ring” (1.1.142-143). Here, Hortensio refers to Bianca as a ring. Him being the one that wishes to marry her, gives her the identity
The Taming of the Shrew written by William Shakespeare depicts the common roles of men and women in the early seventeenth century. Shakespeare writes of Petruchio and Kate, a male and female who sharply oppose each other. Petruicho must "tame" his wife Kate without breaking her true inner spirit.
The first Shakespeare play which Zeffirelli adopted to the cinema, The Taming of the Shrew, deals with the theme of gender roles. In a grander scale the play explores the behavior expectations of males and females both in society at large and within a domestic relationship. For many years, most critics agreed that the heart of the play suggested male domination and female submission, especially to the authority of their husbands, as the accepted male-female dynamic. This view went unchanged for many years and audiences widely accepted Petruchio's “taming” of Katherina as politically correct.
In Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew the elements of farce are exemplified in terms of character, plot, and writing style. The stereotyped characters in The Taming of the Shrew are typical of a farce. Katherina is an outstanding example of a farcical character. Katherina, although stereotyped as a boisterous shrew, can be portrayed as a person needing sympathy due to Baptista's favoritism. The quote, "She is your treasure, she must have a husband: I must dance barefoot on her wedding day…" (A. II S. 1 L. 36-37), makes it obvious that Baptista favors Bianca. In terms of plot, Shakespeare devises the plot to resemble a situation comedy. Although the subplot is more romantic, both the subplot and the main plot revolve around the principle of a favoristic father who is outwitted by his child and her lover.
In The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare creates a strident language between Petruchio and Grumio that catalyzes the philosophical aims of the play by complementing Petruchio’s relationship with Kate, and also by allowing the interrogation of how individuals within the play are or are not tamed. This construction of language allows investigation into the play’s ideas about miscommunication and its consequences. The interactions between the two characters can also be used to analyze the theme of performance within the play. Further, Petruchio and Grumio’s contentious connection reveals what Shakespeare attempted to communicate about dominance and submission and how the two affect relationships.
Have you ever had to act a certain way to get what you wanted? Imagine acting a different way for such a long time that eventually that becomes the norm. William Shakespeare showed this in the play The Taming of the Shrew, this idea became reality for Katherina. Beginning the story as a shrewish, and callous, Katherina would undergo various challenges that would eventually change her into a superior women. Petruchio would take up the task of taming her to better himself and everybody around her.
Zhu, Mei. ""Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew and the Tradition of Screwball Comedy." Purdue University Press, 1 Jan. 2004. Web. 20 May 2014.
In this play as any other, Shakespeare proves to be a visionary. Petruchio achieves his goal through witty persuasion rather than resorting to beating his wife like many a man before him has done. Though Shakespeare does not go as far as some feminists would like him to, Shakespeare does much for the fight of equality of the sexes. Katherine’s as strong, or stronger than any woman in Shakespeare’s plays. The amazing thing is that she achieves this without ulterior motives such as lady Macbeth. She is an honest, bright independent woman. She is not underscored by her subservience to petruchio in public, for "the sun breaks through the darkest cloud" and so do Katherine’s assets break though the public visage of subordination to her husband.
The men in The Taming of the Shrew think that their schemes are clever, but, when it comes to the complexities of love,
...ironic use of manipulation before and after the wedding, Petruchio is able to tame Kate. Or so he thinks. The only real change is that Kate agrees with him, but she only does this to get her way. Therefore she is manipulating him by pretending that he has been able to tame her. He has not tamed her, because she also utilizes the art of manipulation. Before, Kate’s only defense against patriarchy is to be outspoken; now, she negotiates her own sense of power within patriarchy by using manipulation. Shakespeare’s critic of the patriarchal social structure is therefore just, because not only are women denied the same legal power as men, but their manipulative power is also disregarded and considered a weakness. Therefore women are not to be blamed for utilizing this powerful form of control, because that is what the patriarchal social structure forces them into.
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 is through his use of stock characters and irony that the differences between the two couples are revealed.
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.
In The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare creates humour through his characters by creating false realities (as demonstrated by Petruchio’s behaviour and attire in the scene of his wedding) and by the use of subterfuge and mistaken identity (shown in the final scenes with the transformation of Kate and Bianca’s respective personas). He also uses irony quite extensively, especially towards the end of the play (as can be seen in the final ‘wager’ scene).