Lies and disguise have been a part of stories and life since the time of Shakespeare. The Shakespeare play, Taming of the Shrew and the movie, 10 Things I Hate About You, both tackle deception. Multiple characters from both stories pretend to be someone they aren’t. People deceive others for different reasons including fun, money, and even love. This shows how a lot of people have ulterior motives, and everything is done to get something in return.
A main reason people deceive is for fun. “And when he says he is, say that he dreams, For he is nothing but a mighty lord. This do, and do it kindly, gentle sirs. It will be pastime passing excellent” this is said by the Lord at the very beginning of the play Taming of the Shrew. The Lord finds Christopher Sly passed out and decides to lie to him and pretend that he is a mighty lord. This deception will do the Lord no good except for the enjoyment. Similarly in 10
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Things I Hate About You, the character Joey says, “No one’s out of reach for me… Money I’ve got. This I’m going to do for fun.” This is a bit of foreshadowing with how Joey will do anything it takes just to have a little fun with Bianca, and he doesn’t do it to gain any money. Joey is willing to pretend like he actually likes her just for his own personal entertainment. Both of these interactions are at the beginning of the story and show stages of deception early on. These characters don’t necessarily get any gain in these interactions other than the personal amusement it will give to mess with people. There is also the idea of deception due to “love”. In Taming of the Shrew, Lucentio said, “Love wrought these miracles. Bianca’s love Made me exchange my state with Tranio, While he did bear my countenance in the town” This is Lucentio explaining that he disguised himself as a Latin teacher because he was in love with Bianca and had Tranio walk around as him. The same exact disguise occured in 10 Things I Hate About You with the character Cameron. His friend Michael says that a girl named Bianca was looking for a French tutor, he asked if Cam knew French, and he said, “Well no. But I will.” This is after Cameron got one look of Bianca and deemed her perfect. He was willing to do anything for her, including pretending to know French well enough to tutor her. These are both similar because they both pretended to be teachers/tutors just to get closer to Bianca. They did this due to “love” in quotation marks because they both decided to deceive her just because she was beautiful and seemed innocent/obedient. Their ulterior motive is just to get closer to her, not actually help her, they just hope she’ll fall in love with them. One of the most obvious reasons people lie to others is acquiring money.
Petruchio in Taming of the Shrew says, “And therefore, if thou know One rich enough to be Petruchio’s wife, As wealth is burden of my wooing dance” This quote is basically Petruchio saying that all he looks for in a woman is her money, it doesn’t matter how ugly or foul she is. He then goes on to Katherine’s father and acts as if he truly wants to marry her, but he really only does it for money. In 10 Things I Hate About You, Patrick is bribed by Joey, he says, “You’re going to pay me to take out some chick?” Patrick is convinced to pretend to like Kat in order to take her out. He only agrees when he gets paid. At this point Patrick seems totally okay with lying to this girl about wanting to take her out just because he wanted the money. Both of these examples show people will do anything for money. Even Petruchio said that all he wanted was a rich wife. The deception for them doesn’t seem like a big deal because with the amount of money they get out of it, it seems justifiable to
them. People always use deception and lies for their ulterior motives. The personal gain people receive from deception could be money, “love”, or even just pure enjoyment. Deceit and lies have been used for centuries for personal gains. Taming of the Shrew and 10 Things I Hate About You have showed the different motivations for deception, and how the different deceptions play out.
Although it is considered wrong to tell lies, it seems that literature has offered us situations where telling lies isn’t necessarily bad. Of course, lying often has a tragic outcome, but not always for the person or people who told the lie or lies. Oftentimes, these unfortunate outcomes are directed at the person about whom the lie was told. Furthermore, these stories have explained that dishonesty can result in success for both the liar and the target. Maybe we have been teaching the wrong values to our children.
As John Ruskin once said, “The essence of lying is in deception, not in words.” This essence is debated in “The Ways We Lie”, written by Stephanie Ericsson, and “Doubts about Doublespeak”, written by William Lutz. In “The Ways We Lie”, Ericsson talks about the different ways people lie on a day to day basis. By comparison, in “Doubts about Doublespeak”, Lutz discusses the different forms of doublespeak that many individuals frequently use. Lutz considers doublespeak as a language that distorts the meaning of words in order to deceive another person, and only “pretends to communicate” (83). Although both authors agree that lying is about the use of deceptive language, Ericsson describes this use of language as occasionally being necessary,
The society that we live in today is built around lies. Banks lying to customers in order to feed the capitalist mindset, politicians lying to citizens in order to gain power, and charities taking donations with open arms however are stingy when giving back to the cause. The common reason why these organizations lie is to hide what they truly are. People also deceive others in order to hide who they truly are. From a young age, lying becomes engraved into one’s mind, we are taught to walk, talk, and lie.
William Shakespeare’s comedies Much Ado About Nothing and Taming of the Shrew have a similar theme: they both contrast the stories of a mature couple and an immature couple. In Much Ado About Nothing Beatrice and Benedick, the mature couple, are trying to find the courage to love, while Hero and Claudio, the immature couple, are learning the importance of maturity within a relationship. In the same way, Katherina and Petruchio, the mature couple in Taming of the Shrew, are finding the capacity to love, while the Bianca and Lucentio, the immature couple, are learning that appearance isn’t everything in a relationship. I believe that the two mature female leads, Beatrice and Katherina, have some thought-provoking similarities and differences.
Deception is defined as a crafty procedure or practice meant to deceive or defraud. People tend to view this as a sinister action. No matter how sinister it can be, it can also be utilized to gain information and knowledge. How a person uses deception varies among different people. Generally, the more clever people tend to utilize deception very efficiently. Odysseus masters deception in the Odyssey by disguising himself. Odysseus isn't alone for Athena also uses disguises. With that being said, disguises allow Odysseus to succeed in killing the suitors.
The people who claim that they do not lie are probably lying when they say it. Whether it is to deceive authority or just to play a joke on a friend, it is part of human nature to lie. In the novel The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby takes on a character of wealth and luxury. Gatsby wants to win back his love interest from five years ago, so he secretly becomes wealthy through owning an illegal drug business, using his abundance of money to impress her. In contrast, in Tobias Wolff’s “The Liar,” he tells a story of teenage James as he lies about his life to appear more fascinating. He lies not because he wants to, but because it comes naturally to him. Both stories convey people struggling to find the purpose of their
In “The Ways We Lie” by Stephanie Ericsson, the author uses her knowledge to talk about the different ways of lies and how those lies affect the liar, as well as the people who had been told lies. According to the author’s essay, there are 10 types of lies that people encounter every single day: the White Lie, Facades, Ignoring the Plain Facts, Deflecting, Omission, Stereotypes and Cliches, Groupthink, Out-and-Out Lies, Dismissal, and Delusion. Throughout the essay, it is connoted that people are lying in various ways even though they are not intended to. I had been taught that lying is a bad habit. According to Ericsson, there are many types of lie and I did three of them in my life: the White Lie, Omission, and Out-and-Out Lies; however, I can defend my lies for good purposes.
In Taming of the Shrew Petruchio wants to meet and marry Katerina right away. When Petruchio arrives in Padua and visits Hortensio he states he is looking for a wife, Hortensio mentions Katerina and her father’s wealth and immediately Petruchio wants to meet Katerina’s father to talk about the dowry and wedding. In this scene Petruchio says, “I come to wive wealthily in Padua; If wealthily, then happily in Padua” (Shakespeare, Act 1 Scene 2 Lines 72-73), which shows Petruchio only wants the money and doesn’t care as much for true love. In 10 Things I Hate About You, Patrick is offered money to date Kat in which he accepts the deal. In this scene Patrick is confronted by Joey being asked and offered money to date Kat as he is her “equal”, Patrick takes the money and goes on with the plan. Patrick is offered $30 by Joey, and says “We go to the movies that’s 15 bucks, we get popcorn that’s $53, and raisinets $75” (Junger), this shows Patrick taking advantage of the offer, and since Patrick is obtaining more he’s willing to take on the challenge of attempting to date Kat. The major difference between the two scenarios is Petruchio will obtain his money from Baptista’s dowry, but Patrick is obtaining his money from people asking him to do a favour. These points show how money influences Petruchio and Patrick’s
Ericsson uses Webster’s definition of lying as the foundation for her essay. Webster’s official definition of a lie is, “A false statement or action with intent to deceive; anything that gives or is meant to give a false impression” (qtd. in Ericsson 496). By using this definition as her foundation, Ericsson continues to talk about the different forms lies undertake. The first form she addresses is the well-known white lie, used to escape from potentially awkward situations, or people. “The white lie assumes that the truth will cause more damage than a simple, harmless untruth” (Ericsson 496). For example, lying to someone that had a stressful day that your day was great, to save that person from more drama. This lie is commonly used because many people think that by lying they are saving relationships, and emotions. Although, Ericsson points out that in reality “[i]t is an act of subtle arrogance for anyone to decide what is best for someone else” (496). Another method of lying Ericsson mentions is facades. Facades are manipulated to cover up personal transgressions, social faux pas, or whatever the liar wants the lied to believe about them. Ericsson explains that facades are destructive, “[t]hey are used to seduce others into an illusion” (497). Delusion itself seduces the individual into replacing facts with excuses. Delusion relies on the mind to support the
10 Things I Hate About You takes William Shakespeare’s classic play, The Taming of the Shrew and manages to make it relevant to a modern audience. The story remains the same with the younger sister, Bianca, not allowed to have a relationship until her older sister, Kat, does. They did maintain several original scenes and even used several direct quotes from the original play. The writers have eliminated some of Bianca’s suitors and changed the way Kat is tamed to appeal to a modern audience. Shakespeare would have agreed with the casting of the movie. This movie may turn Shakespeare’s work into a teen comedy but it maintains many of the elements that made the play such a hit.
These lies may be necessary to keep a person out of trouble or worry. When Odysseus was in Polyphemus’s cave, he knew that the Cyclops would kill him if he knew his name. So when the Cyclops asked he answered,” Nobody is my name.” This was a lie, but it saved him from being eaten by Poseidon’s son, who hated him. Odysseus lied to the Cyclops a second time when he said, "Poseidon, Shaker of the Earth, has shattered my vessel. He drove it against the rocks on the outer coast of your country, cracked on a cliff, it is gone, the wind on the sea took it.” He knew that the Cyclops was trying to trick him into revealing the location of the ship, and that he would kill his crew if he knew where the boat was, so he had to lie to save their lives. Many times, deceptions are also given to spare someone’s worry or feelings. For example, when Telemachus left Ithaca to go and find his father, the only person he alerted was his childhood nursemaid. He told her, “Do not fear, nurse. This plan was not made without a god’s will. But swear to tell my beloved mother nothing about this until the eleventh day has come or the twelfth hereafter, or until she misses me herself or hears I am absent, so that she may not ruin her lovely skin with weeping.” He knew that his father’s mother had killed herself over worrying about her son, so he did not want to give that same fate to his mother, who already had enough stress on her from dealing with the
Selfishness in society was as big of a problem in 1593 as it is now in modern culture. In 1593, William Shakespeare wrote a play that included many selfish characters. In this piece, it was clearly shown that this way of a self-serving life led to an unfortunate society. The same problems can be seen in the culture of today. This is known because pop culture media is still being created about how selfishness is hurting others and how that can impact society as a whole. The play, “The Taming of the Shrew” as well as the movie, “10 Things I Hate About You”, shows selfishness as a primary theme through the characters’ actions. In both pieces, the characters commit self-serving acts, which shows that throughout history people doing these things
A short quote from Lauryn Hill states, “Reality is easy. It’s deception that is the hard work.” While that claim may be easy to argue, in Mythology, deception is often the strongest attribute of a trickster. It’s often that tricksters go outside the boundaries of moral righteousness to accomplish a specific task. Today, deception is given a bad connotation, but not all tricksters use deception to carry out villainous acts.
But since that didn’t happen, the readers are left to interpret the moral and ethical justice of the different acts of deception that are fabricated. Shakespeare’s Hamlet digs deep into moral compasses of deception. We are taught through this play that lies are the only sin that will never go unpunished. We all lie, and all for different reasons. It’s important to look at those reasons and honestly decide what lies are worth telling and which are not. Even then, it’s nearly impossible to predict how big the lie could get, which can cause more problems than before. As a general guideline, it’s much easier to take the repercussions of a truth, than take the pain and confusion that comes with
How Shakespeare Explores the Theme of Deception and Self-Deception in Twelfth Night Deception is the use of deceit that deceives everyone around you including yourself. It is the fact or state of being deceived. It can be a ruse or a trick in disguise, which deludes, giving a sense of indirection. It’s a misleading falsehood. One can deceive by running away from even their true self either physically or mentally.