Shakespearean comedies, like “The Taming of the Shrew”, “A Midsummer’s Night Dream” and “The Merchant of Venice”, typically end with a happy ending usually involving a marriage between a couple that was courting throughout the play. The ill-matched couples courting throughout the play often encounter obstacles and experience an uncanny style of courting. Shakespeare focuses on the hectic courting of the poorly matched individuals married at the end of the play rather than the future lives of these newlyweds is not given much thought in order to give the play a light ending. Rather than Shakespeare describing love as a natural human state, necessary for true happiness, Shakespeare’s plays are doubtful about marriage’s ability to provide …show more content…
2 Although the plays may reflect the legal concerns of the day, Shakespeare's interest in deeply engaging those issues appears to vary significantly. At first, readers may feel that the legal issues are overemphasized. The Sokols' conscientious documentation of all references to marriage laws in the plays and sonnets suggests that many references are "oblique" or superficial in order to maintain the hierarchy. 3 In Shakespeare’s comedy, “The Taming of the Shrew”, the author depicts the subjection of a willful woman to the will of her husband. 2 The female protagonist in the play, Kate, has a shrill tongue, a hot temper and irrational attitude giving her the reputation of a “shrew”. The first way Shakespeare portrays marriage in this play is by showing the female subject to being married as the victim who is passed from her father to the suoiter of her father’s choosing. In “The Taming of the Shrew”, Kate is seen as an object in her courting and marriage to Petruchio .
Kate’s father, Minola Baptista is one of the wealthiest men in Padua. Due to Baptista’s wealth his daughters, the pretty and poised Bianca and the sharped tongued Kate, become the target of many suitors because of the extensive wealth of their father. Baptista is a good-natured man but displays superficial behaviors. Baptista believes that is the financial aspect of the marriage is more important than his daughter’s happiness. Kate is
In the play Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare, Shakespeare includes several appeals of pathos, ethos and logos. In the last passage of the book, Katharina speaks out to all of the characters with a speech. Katharina describes how she has changed into a person who looks to her husband as her lord, her care taker. The characters who listened to her speech seemed impressed on how she has finally changed her rude attitude and how she obeys her husband Pertruchio’s every word.
Taming of the Shrew is a romantic comedy written by William Shakespeare in the 1500’s. It takes place in the city of Padua, presumably during the Italian Renaissance. The major conflict of the play is ‘taming’ a hot-headed woman named Katherine and to overcome the rule her father holds on his two daughters where the eldest marries first. The script brings up a lot of attention in the feminist theory. But, Shakespeare’s play reflects on the archetypes of characters, situations, and symbols. These connections are made in the play to make the audience familiar with the text and provide a deeper understanding.
In this respect, the play is a typical romantic comedy. However, unlike other Shakespearean comedies, The Taming of the Shrew does not conclude its examination of love and marriage with the wedding. Rather, it offers a significant glimpse into the future lives of married couples, one that serves to round out its exploration of the social dimension of love. Unlike in Romeo and Juliet, inner emotional desire plays only a secondary role in The Taming of the Shrew’s exploration of love. Instead, The Taming of the Shrew emphasizes the economic aspects of marriage; specifically, how economic considerations determine who marries whom. The play tends to explore romantic relationships from a social perspective, addressing the institutions of courtship and marriage rather than the inner passions of lovers. Moreover, the play focuses on how courtship affects not just the lovers themselves, but also their parents, their servants, and their
The Taming Of The Shrew by William Shakespeare is an introduction in the everpresent battle of women to be loving and caring wives, while at the same time holding on to our independence. Its plot is derived from the popular 'war of the sexes' theme in which males and females are pitted against one another for dominance in marriage. The play begins with an induction in which a drunkard, Christopher Sly, is fooled into believing he is a king and has a play performed for him. The play he watches is what constitutes the main body of The Taming OfThe Shrew.
Katherina may be a shrew, but Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew does not truly show a study of how a selfish, spoilt individual is made to conform to society’s expectations, or be tamed into a ‘proper’ woman. At the end of the play, Katherina is not, necessarily, tamed - she just realizes what she must to do in order to get the things she wants. Two main examples of her submitting to Petruchio in order to achieve her desires are in Act 4, scene 5, (the sun versus moon scene) as well as Act 5, scene 2 (the kiss me kate scene and her final monologue).
William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew is an interesting story that demonstrates the patriarchal ideas of how a marriage is suppose to be according to society, what is acceptable of a woman's role in a relationship. It's a story that has many things to show for it's been remade, and remade, even slightly altered to better relate to the teenage audience.
Marriage in William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew At the time Shakespeare wrote The Taming of the Shrew the idealistics
Marriage is presented in Shakespeare?s play The Taming of the Shrew, in a complex manner allowing readers to view the play literally as a brutal taming or ironically as a subversive manifesto. Yet, Shakespeare intends to present marriage to be full of mutual love where neither male nor female dominate but compliment each other thriving together in a loved filled relationship. The portrayal of a deep understanding, which exists in an analogical relationship and the gentle transformation, which occurs in marriage, clearly outlines marriage in the play to be a celebration of a mutual love relationship within the patriarchal foundations of society.
Perhaps the theme that is most recurrent in William Shakespeare's plays is that of filial relationships, specifically the relationship between daughter and father. This particular dynamic has allowed Shakespeare to create complex female characters that come into conflict with their fathers over issues ranging from marriage to independence. At the same time, the dramatist exposes his audience to the struggles women face when attempting to assert themselves in a misogynistic world. Through the daughter-father dyads portrayed in The Taming of the Shrew and A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare highlights the effects that gender constraints have on female characters while simultaneously drawing attention to the sharp contrast between both relationships.
In one of AMND’s most enduring passages, Lysander states (Act one scene one, line 134) ‘The course of true love never did run smooth.’ The conflict that is inevitably born out of love is a central theme at the heart of Midsummer’s Night’s Dream and Hamlet, but is extended by Shakespeare not only to romantic relationships, but to familial bonds as well. The conflict is ultimately resolved in diametrically opposing ways in each play, according to the conventions of their respective genres. Hamlet is a tragedy, and therefore can result only in death, but AMND, as a comedy, uses the traditional method of marriage to resolve its conflict.
The Taming of the Shrew, written by William Shakespeare, is historical proof that flirting and temptation, relating to the opposite sex, has been around since the earliest of times. Because males and females continue to interact, the complications in this play remain as relevant and humorous today as they did to Elizabethan audiences. This is a very fun play, full of comedy and sexual remarks. It's lasting impression imprints itself into the minds of its readers, for it is an unforgettable story of sex, flirting, and happiness. The Taming of the Shrew remains as relevant today because of its relation to the age-old story of the battle of the sexes and dynamics of marriage, as well as the woman's struggle with both of these.
The important theme of marriage in the play The Taming of the Shrew, written by William Shakespeare, is the key to the dominance of men in the Elizabethan Era. During these times, it was socially expected for men to be powerful and be in charge, while women had to be there for a man’s beck and call and always follow the rules given to them. In The Taming of the Shrew, it begins with a young girl named Kate who is made to marry a man named, Petruchio. This marriage is only arranged for the benefit for Kate’s family and Petruchio’s friends, disregarding the feelings of Kate. Shakespeare uses this theme in The Taming of the Shrew to play with the Elizabethan stereotypes and expectations around marriage and how reversing the roles of femininity and masculinity in a relationship can produce a thought-provoking romantic comedy.
One of the most notorious topics of interest in the works of Shakespeare is the role women receive in his plays. The way Shakespeare wrote his plays, women were very submissive to men and had no will and choice of their own. Women were extremely reliant upon the men in their lives, believing that they were inferior and thus following their desire for the women’s lives. This included that marriages were usually arranged by a powerful male, instead of giving the woman the opportunity of choosing marriage for love. It is not surprising that Shakespeare portrayed women in a way that was familiar to him and the time era in which he lived. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Taming of the Shrew, both focus on the development of love and not, with
It seems in Shakespeare's plays, marriage is horrible. There's a dramatic view of the marriage between Oberon and Titania. Fighting over a changeling, casting a spell on your wife, falling in love with another man...or donkey. There's just nothing pleasant happening between the two throughout the play until the end, however its like this in most of Shakespeare's plays. If characters are to be married, its best for them to be wedded at the end of the play, being married throughout the play seem to be unpleasant. Speaking of being wedded at the end, that is another element of comedy used in the play. Although there is conflicted between the couples, it is resolved allowing Hermia and Lysander; Helena and Demetrius; Hippolyta and Theseus to wed
In Shakespeare's comedy, The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare has a woman as one of the story's main characters. Katherine Minola (Kate) is off the wall, and kinda crazy. Because of her actions, the “male centered world” around her doesn't know what to do with her.