The Shakespeareances. Sign up for free weekly e-mail updates safe, secure, spamless, and unshared. Check out the guy behind this website, Eric Minton. Find additional Shakespeareances on Facebook. Every year we seem to see one Shakespeare play in bunches, and this year it was the time of The Taming of the Shrew. With it, came all the post-feminist consternation about the play's alleged sexist tone. I've noticed, though, that most of that furor and the denigration of this play as Shakespeare at his most misogynistic comes from men.
But they and Shaw and many directors fail to grasp Shakespeare's own feminist side in this play and beyond. Shakespeare unabashedly wrote a play about a macho Petruchio successfully "taming" a shrewish Kate.
In fact, Petruchio is the only man in this play who gets women and, consequently, got the woman, heart and all. All you Mr. Sensitives might as well stop reading now and tag me as a Neanderthal lout. The rest of you, remember that I've been married 20 years to a woman who attained the rank of colonel in the Air Force, so hear me out. It's easy to dismiss The Taming of the Shrew —and Shakespeare's frame of mind upon its writing—as one of his earliest works therefore, he was immature or to regard it as simply a farce performed as a joke for a drunk tinker therefore, it has no intentional substance.
Even if both counts are true, they miss the point. On the latter, the theme of a husband's domination over his wife is touched on in the Induction where Sly, the drunk tinker, is featured and is in no way meant to be a role model. On the first point, not only is Shrew one of Shakespeare's earliest plays, I adhere to the scholarship that places it as his very first play. Its poetry is simple and formulaic and the characters all stock figures—except, perhaps, Kate and Petruchio.
This seems the work of a clever someone launching his career on the firm footing of a tried formula. The Taming of the Shrew also launches Shakespeare's career-long study of relationships, especially male-female romantic relationships. The battle of the sexes, as this play so often gets tagged, is carried out specifically in two more comedies: Much Ado About Nothing in mid-career and All's Well That Ends Well in later career.
I'd love to see a theater run these three plays in repertoire, the same two actors playing the battling male and female leads, and I bet we'd see some common themes emerge. Meanwhile, I can already hear the chatter from people who would declare that this arc merely indicates that Shakespeare grew wiser as he grew older. So, back to Shrew and a closer look at the lines and circumstances within that play. This is a woman engaging in antisocial behavior by any definition and no matter the motivation.
Meet her and tell me you would marry her, you would hire her or work for her, or you would want her as your friend. Petruchio, of course, wants to marry her, but primarily for her dad's wealth. Absolutely he's a sexist dude and sees a wife as a means for economic advancement. In that regard he's no different from any of the other men in this or many other Shakespeare plays—even Lucentio: he is smitten with Bianca's beauty, perhaps, but that beauty is an obvious manifestation of her wealth.
Petruchio is simply bolder and more impetuous than the other men in achieving his intentions. Misogynist, though? The play would prove this not so. He tells us beforehand he will woo her by layering on the compliments, and he starts out doing that but soon finds himself in a wit-battle with Kate.
Unlike the other men, he engages her wit and even appreciates it. Kate is obviously the most intelligent individual in this play, and only Petruchio respects that fact. Theatrical characters are most interesting when they want something, and Kate wants ferociously: to be respected, to have her freedom, to punish those who would thwart her. On the page, she sparkles; on the stage, she is a force of nature, all implacable will and exquisite, sharp-edged wordplay.
She should be angry. And Petruchio — brutal, domineering Petruchio — wants just as intensely and plays with words just as relentlessly as Kate does. In their courtship scene, they trade bawdy puns like blows:. You can see echoes of the same playful battle-of-the-sexes banter that would later be so warm and compelling between Benedick and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. This battle is not evenly matched. Petruchio has the entire patriarchy on his side, while Kate has no legal rights and no weapons but her sharp tongue.
The result is sweet, tender, and, as adaptations go, anemic. It robs Kate of the focused, righteous anger that makes her so compelling onstage. In Vinegar Girl , Kate is a prickly college dropout stuck at home with her scientist father, Dr. Battista, and her spoiled younger sister, keeping house for them and working part time at a preschool.
Darling said. She was consulting the notepad she kept beside her telephone. She waited for the punch line, but Mrs. As Dr. The only character in Vinegar Girl with even vaguely nefarious motives is Dr. But the book cannot commit to Dr. Vinegar Girl turns it into an impassioned speech by Kate on how sad it is that men are taught to repress their feelings:. Have you ever thought about that? Yes, when you think about it, The Taming of the Shrew , a story all about how men torturing a woman into submission is hilarious, is the perfect platform from which to explain how men are the r eal victims of oppression in this modern world.
They all get married for different reasons, some better than others. 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. Mrs Bennet after she heard that a new man had moved into the local area. It seems that she already wants one of her daughters to marry Mr Bingley. It was very important for women to marry as women did not have an income as they did not have jobs, so they had to marry a man with money.
Lots of girls were sent away to boarding schools when they were young, but only if the family could afford it, Jane Austen was sent away when she was a young girl. Once a potential partner is chosen, the parents may or may not set up a quick meeting between the two individuals. In other extreme cases, the individuals do not meet at all before the wedding. It is also customary for the two families involved in the arranged marriage to exchange gifts.
Romeo and Juliet also exposes how women are forced into being feminine. Due to the fact that only one character, The Nurse, shows any type of masculine traits and when they are shown it is for comedic effect.
This classic play exposes many issues within society that second wave feminist tried to. The conflicts between the two families all start with a period of insults thought out to injure the others pride and damage their honour Tybalt is a major contributor to the atmosphere to the beginning of the play and his contribution carries on over the whole play even though he may not be there in body.
The first time we meet Tybalt is in Act 1, Scene 1. The Knight pleads with her to ask for Perhaps she is giving him exactly what he deserves: superficiality. The Wife begins her tale by depicting the golden age of King Arthur as one that was both more perilous and more full of opportunity for women.
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