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 …show more content…
can negatively and directly impact other individuals around them as well as society. In both the play and the movie mentioned before, the plot revolves around Bianca not being able to marry or date until Katherine does as well.
In “The Taming of the Shrew”, Katherine and Bianca’s father states, “Gentlemen, importune me no farther, For how I firmly am resolved you know: That is not to bestow my youngest daughter Before I have a husband for the elder” (act.scene.linenumbers). In this play, the youngest daughter, Bianca only wants Katherine to get married so that she can as well, which is selfish because Bianca is just trying to get something for herself. In the movie, “10 Things I Hate About You” Bianca asks Kat, her older sister, to begin dating, so that she could go on a date with a guy she liked. These are similar because, in both instances, Bianca wants Katherine to do something, so that Bianca, herself, can gain something from it, which is a self-serving act. This act negatively affects Katherine, which will be seen throughout the play and the …show more content…
movie. People will do whatever they can to commit selfish acts in order to get what they want and will go as far as to literally pay for it. “After my death, the one half of my lands, and, in possession, twenty thousand crowns” (Taming of the Shrew act.scene.linenumbers). This is a quote from Baptista, the father of the two girls, where he is making a deal with a suitor for Katherine. This is a completely selfish act because he is simply trying to get both of his daughters off of his hands by paying someone to take his eldest daughter. There is a similar scene in “10 Things I Hate About You” where Joey pays Patrick to date Kat. In the movie, Joey just wants Bianca, the only reason he is paying Patrick is to make himself happy. In both of these examples, a character is deceitfully paying someone else to do something in order to get what they really want. There are many more examples of selfishness, but mainly, self-serving people will do whatever they can, without regards to others, to get what they want.
In “Taming of the Shrew” Petruchio says, “Now, by my mother’s son, and that’s myself, It shall be moon, or star, or what I list, Or e’er I journey to your father’s house” (act.scene.linenumbers). In this part of the play, Petruchio is focusing only on taming Katherine, the shrew in order for others to respect him as well as for the fun of having an obedient wife who comes with a fair amount of wealth. He does this by denying Katherine of human rights such as food, clothing, and then further humiliates her by forcing her to agree to his every word, whether it be true or not. This takes quite to toll on Katherine and she eventually gives in. From the movie mentioned before, there is a scene where Patrick speaks without thinking about the repercussions his words might have, especially on Kat, who he did not think about before hurting (“10 Things I Hate About You”). In both instances, there is a clear disregard for another person and it causes them great distress, just because another was doing something for
themselves. The characters in both the play, “The Taming of the Shrew” as well as in the movie, “10 Things I Hate About You” are willing to disregard others’ feelings in order to get what they want for themselves. We see themes of selfishness throughout when Bianca tries to force Katherine to date and marry, when people are paid to date and marry Katherine, and when Katherine’s feelings are completely disregarded by her love interest. All of these examples lead to a sort of destruction of Katherine’s character at the end of both plots. Self serving acts only continue and allow the behavior that hurts others. We can see this by looking in our past all the way back to 1593 when this play by Shakespeare was written and looking again now when the same problems still exist in our society today.
Selfishness is a common trait in the world, it’s not a hidden factor, but very well-known as being one’s self-interest. The story “Hunters in the Snow” by Tobias Wolff, discusses how each character in the story deals with different kinds of selfish ways. One character, Tub, deals with eating problems and lies about it. Frank deals with a secret life that he is hiding from his wife. Kenny is always comparing something to his liking and if he does not like it then he will complain. Self-absorption is when someone is focused on their self and only themselves. It is known to be a regular’s human’s condition, it’s something majority of human beings have. Selfishness may also kick in during survival incidents. For example, a boy and his friends
Once the father had made this choice the daughters were forced to obey. The romance was seen as a pursuit of love to win the girl. In 10 Things I Hate About You, I chose to deal with the issue in The Taming of the Shrew in a similar fashion but with one significant difference. Marriage is the focal point in the play "not to bestow my youngest daughter before I have a husband for the elder".
The consequences of selfishness are seen to be so dramatic and devastating, that an audience can’t help but be
Selfishness is a disease of the soul that every person experiences several times throughout their life. To say that it has never been experienced would be hypocrisy. To say that it is a “good thing”, would be erroneous. Although as humans we like to lie to ourselves, it is no question that selfishness can make any person act like a fool. It consumes us and makes us into someone we are not. Whether it leads to getting people killed, falling in love, or buying alcohol, selfishness always leads to destruction.
Being selfish can get you somewhere in the moment, but in the end, it will hunt you down. People have always been selfish, and that will continue throughout the ages, but Frankenstein shows just how much being selfish can affect your life as a whole. Let us all remember we can work each and everyday to better ourselves and fix what we can in our lives. If each of us changed one selfish thought a day, think about how far we would be in a
Ayma Dommy Ciccone English 11 16 October 2015 The Power of Selfishness Humans are selfish, all of the actions we perform are done to benefit ourselves in one way or another. Thomas Hobbes and Arthur Miller, the author of ¨The Crucible¨, display the selfishness of humans in their writings. Hobbes says that many acts our society considers selfless are actually done for internal peace, making the selfless act selfish. The excerpt from Hobbes 's writing claims, ¨Even at our best, we are only out for ourselves.
In The Taming of the Shrew, the concept of love is a means of emotional manipulation, and manipulation is nothing more than a means of control between men and women. William Shakespeare critiques the patriarchal social structure by ironically employing the manipulative stance Petruchio takes towards winning Katherine as his wife by charming her with words and manipulating her psychologically, and then taming her after their marriage through legal, physical, financial, and psychological control and manipulation. Though Petruchio may think he yields power over his wife, Katherine uses obedience as a tool of manipulation and has the control of the household, as can be seen by her ironic speech at the end of the play, where she claims women must serve their men. Shakespeare uses the irony of a man using manipulation as a tool for control to magnify the significance of the power women yield through manipulation, thus proving that men and women engage in a power-shifting struggle.
and the events for the rest of the play during the first two acts. & nbsp; Although even her father calls her a shrew, Katherine has a deeper. character than the epithet would imply. From the beginning we see that she is continually placed second in her father's affections, and despised by all others. Bianca on the other hand, is identified as the favorite. playing the long-suffering angel, increasing Baptisa's distinction between. the two. As Katherine recognizes her sister's strategy, her reaction is as one can imagine how another would react suffering this type of bias for so.
Baptista tells Petruchio to win her love. Petruchio acts and has a one to one debate with Katerina, Petruchio does not win her love but tells Katerina he will marry her anyways, resulting in Petruchio tricking Baptista in winning Katerina’s love” (Shakespeare, Act 2 Scene 1 Lines 110-308). The paraphrase examines Petruchio’s increased desire to marry Katerina after being told about the dowry or money involved by attempting to win her love and deceiving Baptista of achieving to win Katerina’s. In 10 Things I Hate About You, Patrick has an increased desire to attempt again and date Kat after being offered more money. Patrick takes the money and takes her out to different places, however, Patrick ends up falling in love with Kat and money began to no longer play a role for him showing a difference between the play Taming of the Shrew and 10 Things I Hate About You.
From the beginning of the play, the differences between Katherina and Bianca are highlighted through their interactions via dialogue. Early in the second act, Bianca pleads with her sister to not “make a bondmaid and a slave of me” because, as deemed by society, Bianca is not supposed to marry before her older sister (2.1.2). Bianca asks Katherina to “unbind [her] hands” so that she can get rid of all the gawdy implements she is forced to wear as a polite woman of the time, because if she doesn’t want to follow one rule, she doesn’t see why she should follow any of them (2.1.4). This immediately sets up these two sisters by showing how one depends on the status of the other to be truly happy, or happy as deemed by the doctrines of society anyway.
Ethical egoism is diametrically opposite to ethical altruism, which obliges a moral agent to assist the other first, even if he sacrifices his own interest. Further, researchers justify and rationalize the mental position of egoism versus altruism through an explanation that altruism is destructive for a society, suppressing and denying an individual value. Although the ‘modern’ age unsubtly supports swaggering egoistic behavior in the competitive arena such as international politics, commerce, and sport, in other ‘traditional’ areas of the prideful selfishness showing off, to considerable extent discourages visible disobedience from the prevalent moral codes. In some cases, the open pro-egoist position, as was, per example, the ‘contextual’ interpretation of selfishness by famous German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, can be described as a ‘grotesque anomaly’.
Power is the capability of influencing others in their behavior. It all connects to him trying to tame Katherine. He wants to change her behavior and he contains the power of doing this because at the end she respects him more than any other female would respect their husband. Throughout the play, The Taming of the Shrew, by William Shakespeare, Petruchio, Katherine 's husband, contains the power in the relationship because he is able to change her behavior.
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.
With the development of modern society, many people say that the society has become miserable, and people only care their own profit. The self-interest is becoming the object of attacking. Thereupon, when we mention self- interest, people always mix up the concept of self-interest with selfishness. As we all known, the idea of selfishness is, “Abusing others, exploiting others, using others for their own advantage – doing something to others.” (Hospers, 59) Selfish people have no ethics, morals and standards when they do anything. At the same time, what is self – interest? Self- interest can be defined as egoism, which means a person is, “looking out for your own welfare.” (Hospers, 39) The welfare people talk about is nothing more than
The Taming of the Shrew is mainly about the character Katherine but is also a little bit about her sister Bianca. Katherine is a rude and violent woman while her sister is quaint and polite. In this play Bianca is not allowed to marry until her sister has. So two men who want to marry her come up with a plan to get Katherine married. They found a crazy suitor for her and set them up. While this was happening Bianca got a third suitor. After Katherine was wed Bianca was courted to one of the three gentlemen and was wed behind her fathers back. After Katherine was married her husband tried to tame her and succeeded. Read the book to see what completely happened and to find out who finally tamed the shrew.