An analysis of the relationship between Petruchio and Katherina
throughout the play The Taming Of The Shrew
Introduction:
The Taming Of The Shrew is a comic play based around a town in Italy
called Padua. In my view, the play is mainly centred round the
relationship of Petruchio and Katherina. Petruchio, a young, ambitious
and (it could be said) ravenous man has his heart set on locating a
young and beautiful women with a wealthy background to be his wife.
The fact that he will only be interested in the women for her money is
indicated several times before the meeting of Petruchio and Katherina.
P: "I come to wive it wealthily in Padua;
If wealthily, then happily in Padua."
P: "Signor Hortensio, 'twixt such friends as we
Few words suffice; and therefore, if thou know
One rich enough to be Petruchio's wife-
As wealth is burden of my wooing dance-"
He also says that as long as she has money she could be:
Old
Curst
Shrewd
He thinks that her scolding will have no effect on him and he will
succeed in overcoming Katherinas furious temper.
Katherina is the daughter of Baptista, a wealthy man of Padua. She is
one of two daughters and because of her widely known temper and
spiteful personality she has failed to attract the attention from the
suitors of Padua. They are all instead turned towards the silent
beauty of her younger sister Bianca. This is obviously upsetting for
Katherina but she doesn't change her ways to attract attention of
suitors. It is as if she doesn't want to be married to people with
wealth that are forced upon her and she voices her views without
hesitation.
G: To cart her rather. She's too rough for me.
There, there Hortensio, will you have any wife?
K...
... middle of paper ...
...tionship at such
an early stage. Katherina is understandably furious isn't ready to
deal with Petruchio's strange behaviour and tells him he can leave but
she will not be going with him. This is an attempt by Katherina to
gain some leadership in the relationship because she is only used to
getting her own way and doesn't like how she is being treated.
K: Nay then, do what thou canst, I will not go today,
No, nor tomorrow, not till I please myself.
The door is open sir, there lies your way,
You may be jogging whiles your boots are green.
Whom thou lov'st best; see thou dissemble not.
B: Believe me, sister, of all the men alive
I never yet beheld that special face
Which I could fancy more than any other.
K: Minion, thou liest. Is't not Hortensio?
B: If you affect him, sister, here I swear
I'll plead for you myself but you shall have
find a wife. "I come to wives it wealthy in Padua; If wealthy, then happily in
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
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.
Garner, Shirley Nelson. “The Taming of the Shrew:Inside or Outside of the Joke?” “Bad” Shakespeare: Revaluations of the Shakespeare Canon. Dickinson: Farleigh Dickinson U P, 1988. 105-19. Rpt. in Shakespeare for Students. Ed. Catherine C. Dominic. Detroit: Gale, 1997. 374-78. Print.
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.
"Then tell me - if I got your daughter's love, what dowry shall I have
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.
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.
Often in literature, parallels are used to accentuate certain things. William Shakespeare utilizes this tool in both The Taming of the Shrew and A Midsummer Night's Dream. In both of these comedic plays, there is a set of women who are at odds with each other. These relationships can be compared and contrasted in different aspects.
"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 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.
The Taming of the Shrew is set in a time period that did not accept women as we do today. In today's society, women who are strong and independent and quick witted are praised. In Elizabethan times women were supposed to know their role in life, being good to their husbands, making children and taking care of them. There were no women in politics, there were no women in business, it was only acceptable for women to participate in domestic areas of life. Women could not live a respectable life in this time period without a male figure to take care of them, rendering them helpless without men. If there was anything that must be done involving economics or education, it was up to the men. Men were the ones who worked and brought home the money to support the family. The roles of men and women were very distinct, and it resulted in giving the men the majority of the power.
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.
...he fails to allow his dreams to add to his identity (in his case, however, his "dream" appears to actually be his reality). Petruccio, like Neo and Quaid, appears in the play within the play to affirm that "reality" is more than just physical environment (i.e., as he denies the place of the wedding ceremony and his attire to equate his identity). Quaid and Leonard's environments are just as fabricated as Sly's noble environment is, yet even their dreams and implanted memories/mementos shape their identity. All of these texts utilize the notion of autopoiesis and emergence from systems within systems. They acknowledge the validity of implanted memories and dreams to demonstrate that though systems force their inhabitants to view them with limiting lenses, when one is able to acknowledge that they do exist in a system within a larger system, emergence can take place.