Disguises often mislead others into believing what they see to be true, but in reality the person behind the disguise can be the polar opposite. The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare is a play that revolves around disguises. The play features a wealthy man, Baptista, with two very different daughters, Katherine, a shrew, and Bianca, an obedient maiden. The story unfolds as Baptista announces that his youngest daughter, Bianca, who has multiple suitors, shall not marry, nor interact with any man but a tutor, until his eldest daughter, Katherine, is wed. Outraged, Bianca’s three suitors, Lucentio, Gremio, and Hortensio, each come up with a plan to find a suitor for Katherine or get Bianca a tutor, so Baptista will be in their favor. …show more content…
During this moment, Katherine questions Bianca about her suitors, so Bianca offers them to Katherine to get them off her hands. Instead of fighting with Katherine about having her hands bound and getting striked, Bianca suggests giving Katherine her suitors by saying, “If you affect him, sister, here I swear / I’ll plead for you myself, but you shall have him.” (Shakespeare 2.1.14-15). This portrays Bianca as unable to fight back or only willing to submit to others in tough situations, but in actuality Bianca is offering Katherine her two suitors, Hortensio and Gremio, because she doesn’t want them. Bianca isn’t interested in becoming their wife because as she stated earlier, “Believe me, sister, of all the men alive / I never yet beheld that special face / Which I could fancy more than any other.” (Shakespeare 2.1.10-12), she does not love either of them. By allowing Katherine to think that she has won the fight, Bianca is able to avoid more conflict and deceive her sister into potentially taking her suitors. This just adds to how strategic Bianca’s disguise was. In this scene she was able to try to give away her unwanted suitors all while seeming as if she is doing it because she doesn’t want to fight her
His words demonstrate she is like an item that is worn out ready to be replaced. The last way Shakespeare displays Hortensio as having a degrading tone towards Bianca is when he uses diction and syntax when he realizes Bianca and and Lucentio are in love. Since he has realized this he knows that he will marry a wealthy widow that loves him, “as long as I have loved this proud disdainful haggard” (4.2.39). Once again Hortensio takes away Bianca's identity referring to her as a wild animal. He strips her from her own individuality. He talks about her in a cruel way only to show how he has no respect for her. The words used in this quote portray that he has no affection for her and thinks of her as being in his own control. Shakespeare does not put breaks between “proud” or “disdainful” revealing that Hortensio does not give enough effort to even separate his thoughts about Bianca. Failing to hesitate, Hortensio continues to humiliate Bianca through his words. He just keeps humiliating her without stopping to think. He never really loved her as a person but only as the girl he craved in his
A long time ago, a drunken man fell asleep outside an alehouse. This man, Christopher Sly, was discovered by a mischievous lord who took him into his home. The witty lord then convinced Sly that he was a lord, as well. The lord then put on a play for him. The play, The Taming of the Shrew, was about the two young daughters of Baptista. The youngest daughter, Bianca, wished to wed but her father, Baptista, would not allow this until his eldest daughter, Katherina, was married. Under normal circumstances, it would be easy to find a husband for Katherina with all her beauty, but all her beauty was covered by her shrewd personality. By this time Bianca's suitors were growing very impatient, so they decide to team up and find a husband for Katherina. In jest they mentioned their plan to a friend, Petruchio, who surprisingly agreed to marry Katherina. All her beauty and wealth were enough for him. Katherina reluctantly was wed to Petruchio and she was taken to his home to be tamed. With Katherina out of the way, Bianca was now allowed to marry Lucentio, who offered her father the highest dowry for her. In the final scenes of the play, Katherina proves that she is tamed by winning an obedience contest at a dinner party. Katherina is now even more in accordance with her wifely duties than Bianca. A fare is a type of comedy based on a ridiculous situation. The Taming of the Shrew, an eminent example of a farce, is the first of three farces written by Shakespeare.
"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
...st play, it is not sexist and demeaning towards women. Petruchio, Hortensio, and Lucentio may have bet on their wives compliance in some eyes, but after further analysis, they were actually betting on the trust between the couple. The reader must also take into account the time period the play was written in which was the 16th century, where women were usually not even allowed to go to school to be educated, and Bianca was having private tutors for her education. Kate was changed by Petruchio’s “taming” from the beginning to the end of the play, but at the end of the novel when Kate was called upon and made her speech, she was the happiest she had been in the entire story. There are however some sexist elements in the story, but just because there are certain characteristics of sexism in a play does not mean the play in itself is sexist and demeaning towards women.
Katherine and Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew. & nbsp; The Taming of the Shrew brings out the comedic side of Shakespeare. where irony and puns carry the play throughout. In my paper, I will. concentrate on the irony of the play, the introduction of the two. sisters. These two sisters begin off with the elder, Katherine, viewed as. a shrew, and Bianca as the angelic younger of the two. However, as the play proceeds, we begin to see the true sides of the two sisters and their roles totally turn around. I will try to analyze the method in which Shakespeare introduces the two sisters and how he hints at their true identity.
Shakespeare, sets up a teaching lesson, helping us to see the mistakes of our own judgment. When Baptista announces that Kate must marry before Bianca may take suitors, Gremio describes Kate by saying "She's too rough for me" (1.1.55). Later in the scene, Gremio reiterates his dislike for Kate, claiming she is a "fiend of hell" (88) and offering that "though her father may be very rich, any man is so very a fool to be married to hell" (124–126). He finishes by saying that to marry Kate is worse than to "take her dowry with this condition: to be whipped at the high cross every morning" (132–134). Hortensio, too, is quick to add to the situation, calling Kate a devil (66) and claiming that she is not likely to get a husband unless she is "of gentler, milder mold" (60).
When someone is a female their first thought should not be weak or nurturing, just as when someone is male their first though shouldn’t always be powerful. Unfortunately it has becomes so ingrained in societies mentality that this is the way that things work. The Taming of the Shrew is a past writing piece that expands on a mentality that is modern. The male gender cannot be put into this same constraint. Petruchio is the epitome of what society would describe a male as. He thinks he is in charge and always the superior to women. He expects Katherine to always do what he tells her to do, because he believes that is her duty as his wife. Moreover he should not be expected to do that for her. Furthermore, Bianca is what many would describe as the perfect woman. She is nurturing and she does not speak out against what she is told. When she does speak she always speaks like a lady. She exists merely for decoration in the home and to serve her husband. Katherine is the inconsistency in this stereotype on femininity. Her purpose in the novel originally is to rebel against this biased thought on female gender roles. Katherine is not afraid to speak out against the things that she is told to do. If she disagrees with something she will act on it and she is just as strong as the men in the novel; which is why many of the men actually fear her. Katherine is not submissive and does not believe that the only reason that she exists is to serve a husband. Katherine does not want to be just the damsel in distress, she wants to be in charge. At the end of the novel there is a switch in the personalities of Katherine and Bianca. This alteration provides the purpose of showing that gender is not something that someone can be confined in just because they were born a female. A woman can have many different traits and still be feminine. It is impossible to put femininity in a box because there are no real qualities for what
In the taming of the shrew, the play focused on two women in particular, Baptista's daughters, Bianca and Katherine. These women lived in this environment that gave men power for all their lives...
Bianca is a victim of circumstance and unknowingly involved because of her love for Cassio. I believe that Shakespeare wrote this play to illustrate the injustices done to women during his time, among other political messages that are entwined into the plot. Works Cited: Shakespeare, William. Othello. Ed.
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.
...es not see her as a wife material and this explains why he shows no commitment towards her. Bianca knows she deserves much better than the way Cassio treats her and this is prove when she leaves him. Bianca is a little bit like Emilia in a sense where she stands up for something and in this case it's for herself, " I am no strumpet, but a life as honest as you thus abuse me." (scene 5, lines 142). With this character Shakespeare shows that the lower class women know they deserve better but they lack the power to be heard because they are considered as nobodies. Bianca would be Emilia's follower is Emilia made a move to fight for women's rights. However even Emilia treats Bianca poorly because she believes what men say about her.
This shows how society thought that women are merely objects who did not deserve truth and compassion. Also, making it seem as if Bianca lacks the ability to comprehend that “Cambio” is not Cambio at all, even though she sees him often because he is indeed her tutor. In a way mocking the intelligence of the female mind. This same effect continues when Petruchio, Lucentio, and Hortensio all bid on whose wife is the most obedient. Men treated their women like pets, eager to prove how obedient and how many tricks they were capable of doing for publicity “A hundred then” (act 5 scene 2).
In the play Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare, the motif of disguise presented throughout the story. Each individual impersonates a different person in order to achieve their own goals, whether is love, money, or even their life. The characters gain from concealing their identity. However, not all people benefit from disguising themselves.
It can therefore be asserted that the underlying meaning of social status is very powerful, but hard to obtain in a society like Othello’s. With specific social norms of this time, including social status and gender roles, it is easily represented with the relationship between Bianca and Cassio. Retaining to the social class differences and elements between Cassio and Bianca, it actually is hard for a woman to obtain social power due to the restrictions of the Elizabethan era. Thus being stated, Bianca tries to assert herself as Cassio’s mistress so that she can put her foot within social