Shakespeare's Rethinking of Power

The Taming of the Shrew is one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays with characters that are appealing with humor and based on an understanding of human nature. One can see the main character criticized as a shrew, Katherine played by Kala Ross a second-year MFA in performance student at UofL who I will be talking about in this critique. There have often been questions about the mischievousness behind Kate’s character. Many inferences behind the reasons for Kate’s shrewd behavior as well as her tameness have puzzled academic scholars for centuries.

Attempting to interpret Kate’s shrewd character from the beginning with her father and sister, through the middle with her first meeting with Petruchio, to the finale will help understand why she is finally tamed and not a shrew due to happiness and goodwill within herself. The Taming of the Shrew portrays a physiological disguise due to certain issues the characters face. Kate becomes a shrew to compensate for her feelings of being hurt due to her father’s favoritism toward Bianca, her sister.

Furthermore, she refuses to be set up with an unworthy husband and so assumes the role of a shrew by insulating herself from the hurtful world around her and no matter how much she may secretly wish to join in the fun. Likewise, Petruchio assumes the role of a shrew-tamer by exaggerating Kate’s bad behavior until she cannot help but see how immature and childish her actions have been.

Shakespeare adapts to “Shrew” folktale in the order to assert his rights as a storyteller to tell a familiar tale, and yet to break from traditions” in which he allows the audience to analyze if the main character is tamed or still considered a shrew.

Get quality help now

RhizMan

Verified

Proficient in: The Taming Of The Shrew

4.9 (247)

“ Rhizman is absolutely amazing at what he does . I highly recommend him if you need an assignment done ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

Extensively presumed to be a shrew throughout Padua, Katherine is high-tempered and sharp-tongued at the beginning of the play. She persistently insults and degrades the men around her. She is prone to displaying wild anger in which she may physically attack whoever tries to encounter her. Katherine is inherently sharp-tempered allowing many to infer that her unpleasant behavior is the root of unhappiness and she may act like a shrew because she is miserable.

There are many possible reasons for Katherine’s unhappiness because she expresses jealousy of her father’s treatment of her sister, but her anxiety may also trigger her feelings about her undesirability. There is a fear built inside her that she may never win a husband due to the way men treat her and she feels out of place in her society. However, due to her intelligence, independence, and lack of beauty, she is unable to play the same role as the maiden daughter, Bianca. She despises society’s expectations, but she obeys her father and shows charm and courtesy toward her two suitors. At the same time, however, Katherine must see the severity of her social situation, her only hope to find a secure and happy place in the world lies in finding a suitable husband. These inherently conflicting desires may lead her into a future full of misery and poor temper.

There is a strong shrewish behavior from Kate due to her father’s consistent humiliation of her in public. For instance, when Baptista, Kate’s father, informed Bianca’s suitors, Tranio and Lucentio, in public that he will not allow either of them to marry his younger daughter until a husband is found for Katherine by proclaiming that he first wants to have Katherine married to get her off his hands due to the perception of how society sees her as unwanted. Kate tries to reveal her degradation to her father, “I pray you, sir, is it your will/To make a stale of me amongst these mates?”. However, after hearing this, Hortensio rebukes Kate for her renowned temper to which she replies that if she cared enough about her father who doesn’t care about her and she would hit him on the head with a stool. Her enraged response to Hortensio is reasonable because she is being publicly humiliated, and she reacts with arrogance to cover her embarrassment. Hortensio explains Katherine’s outlook within society when she states, “one might want to argue that the other characters pretend that they do not understand what Katherine is saying because she is dangerous and as an outspoken woman she poses, a threat within society in which they are uninterested in her”. Katherine is increasingly humiliated when Baptista announces that he desires to hire schoolmasters to instruct her youth.

Similarly, Bianca’s personality also stimulates Kate’s uprising. On the surface, Bianca seems to be a charming, kind young woman; a “young modest girl,” as Lucentio calls her. However, in reality, she is cunning and a sneaky sister. Her conniving and continuous call for attention increases Kate’s shrewdness. Kate, knowing her sister’s trickery, retaliates in anger and jealousy. In Scene 1, where Kate flips and squeezes her sister’s hands to torment her because Kate is jealous of Bianca, and the accusations of favoritism in which she confronts her father she is betrayed. Katherine gathers her thoughts and says, “I will go sit and weep/Till I can find occasion of revenge”. She is hurt and wants to cover up her feelings by seeking revenge which allows us to understand her shrewish ways.

Katherine’s shrewdness finds itself at a plateau upon her first meeting with Petruchio. Although Petruchio initially seeks Katherine out for her dowry, we are given to believe that he likes her for her wit and her spirit. The viewer receives the impression that Petruchio decides to take on the taming of a shrew as a sort of challenge or sporting pastime. Petruchio’s attraction to Katherine’s spirit helps him penetrate her shrewd shell. This puzzles Kate for why Petruchio sustains her by her side, and she has no alternative but to keep acting as the shrew she portrayed herself to be the past several years. Petruchio is not only an adventurous and forthright man; he is also a man of extreme patience and considerable wisdom. He treats Katherine affectionately, calling her Kate with tender familiarity from the beginning. He answers her noisy scorn with praise, rebutting her jabs with humorous witticisms, managing to convey a fondness for her by saying, “Assess are made to bear, and so are you,” and she tells him, “Women are made to bear,” he replies, “and so are you”. With gentle humor, he reminds her of her femininity. His patience and good nature are not the products of a foolish mind. He lets Katherine know from the beginning that he is not deceived about her reputation, “you are called plain Kate, /And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst”. When she strikes him, he does not respond with violence but tells her instead that if she strikes again, he will strike back. Katherine says to her father, “You have shown a tender fatherly regard, /To wish me wed to one-half lunatic; /A mad-cap ruffian”. Yet we, as the viewers, know that Petruchio is no lunatic. Her reaction is nothing more than an attempt to save face. She says she will see Petruchio hanged before she will marry him, but these remarks constitute the extent of her argument. She has the opportunity to say more, but she does not because she wants to be married for she has met her match. like

Finally, by Scene 5, Katherine is lastly “tamed.” Petruchio has put on an astounding performance, and she recognizes at last what she failed to see at first which is his craziness mirrored her behavior. In this scene, she realizes that all she needs to do is to secure a peaceful place with her husband by submitting herself to his will and recognizing his authority. Her husband, Petruchio’s behavior is accompanied by a legitimate explanation, “Now, by my mother’s son, and that’s myself/It shall be the moon, or star, or what I list, /Or ere I journey to your father’s house-/Everyone crossed and crossed; nothing but/crossed!” Katherine will not receive peace until she makes herself a pleasant companion to him. This is the climax of the play’s main plot. It is the moment at which the shrew is tamed, although she is never truly a shrew. Petruchio has turned her from unreasonable aggressiveness to unreasonable submission, to attain a comfortable compromise of a compatible wife.

In Scene 1, Katherine again submits to Petruchio’s will when he demands a kiss in the public street. She is embarrassed to kiss him but does not kiss him. When he asks her, if she is ashamed of him, she replies, “No, sir, God forbid”. She submits, saying, “I will give thee a kiss; now pray thee, love, stay”. She, who has been used to noisily having her way, begs him to stay and calls him “love” instead of “sir” as has formerly been her habit. There is now obvious affection between the two, and Petruchio says of their new harmony, “Is not this well?”. He calls her his sweet Kate, and she recognizes the sincerity of the epithet. Therefore, with careful love and affection stemming from Petruchio’s sincerity towards Katherine, her shrewd behavior turns into sweet honey.

In conclusion, due to her father and sister’s lack of affection and humiliation, Kate develops a nasty shrewish character. Katherine who was a neglected, hurt, and humiliated daughter who disguised her grief from herself, as well as from others, with a noisy, shrewish temper then recognizes her equal when she meets Petruchio, yet she has no choice but to keep acting aslike a shrew. It is not until Petruchio wins Kate’s affection through his kindness and love that she finally lets go of her shrewish cover, becomes tamed, and becomes the envied wife of every husband.