The Taming of the Shrew

Name

Professor

Subject

Date

_Taming of the Shrew

The all-time favorite classic The Taming of the Shrew ' is one of Shakespeare 's best-known pieces . This romantic comedy merely catches audiences ' attention because the play centers on the theme about battle of the sexes . The proverbial shrew ' was birthed out of this romantic comedy since this writing , the shrew is taken not only to mean a mouse-like mammal , but also signifies a woman with a violent scolding , or nagging temperament , such as Katherine in the play . This in reality

is true since most female possess the same characteristics of Katherine . Audiences continues to enjoy comedies about conflicts between husbands and wives or boyfriends and girlfriends because this is one social issue where they can find themselves and learn at the same time

Katherine in the play is the shrew as presented by Shakespeare in a comical way , and she certainly is not a mouse-like mammal . Kate is the eldest daughter of a rich merchant , who is introduced early in the play as a snarly , independent and intelligent woman , whose hand in marriage is purposely used by her father Baptista as leverage for giving his other daughter , Bianca , in marriage . Bianca 's suitors seem hopeless at this point , but find salvation in hiring Petruchio , an arrogant , selfish and seemingly heartless mercenary of sorts , to marry Kate so they can go ahead with wooing and winning Bianca 's heart

Petruchio and Kate 's first encounter sends sparks flying all over the place , and Kate , for some unknown reason , doesn 't react when Petruchio falsely announces to everyone (including Kate 's father ) that she has agreed to marry him . Petruchio then continues to tame ' Kate after they get married . He does this by keeping her from eating or sleeping for several days - he seemingly pretends that he loves her so much he cannot allow her to eat his inferior food or to sleep in his poorly made bed

It is apparent that Petruchio has successfully tamed the shrew because as one can see in the scene where the couple are on their way to Padua to visit Baptista , Kate succumbs when Petruchio forces her to say that the sun is the moon and that an old man is really a beautiful young maiden . It is also apparent that Kate is truly a tamed shrew based on the speech she give in the end of the play , where she obeys everything that Petruccio says and gives a long speech advocating the loyalty of wives to their husbands (Shakespeare , 101

This work by Shakespeare , is one of his writing that uses comedy as a masquerade which turns out to have a valuable lesson in the end . It is quite clear from the way the story went that it was indeed meant to be a comedy . Yet not even Shakespeare could have predicted the feminist reactions to his play . The act of Taming the Shrew is something that is quite straightforwardly presented in the play . There are...