Taming of the Shrew- essay help

Hi all.

I am currently doing an essay on Taming of the Shrew, basically asing if Kate gets tamed. I have already made up my mind that she has NOT been tamed. But this is not where my troubles lie, i need help on other aspects of the essay. Just a few questions i have:

1) The Induction sets up the theme of "All is not as it seems" at the beggining of the play, does this relate to Kates final speach?
2) Would Queen Elizabeth sympathise with the rebellious Kate's attitude, and how do you think she would wish to see the play ended?
3) How subtle do you think Bianca is in her stringing along of the men, and in which ways does she wind up Kate.

They are all the questions i have at this moment, thank you to anyone who answers. ^.^

Well in my opinion there are actually two shrews in the play. Kate and Petrucio are both (in my book) shrews. One is greedy, selfish and doesn't care about anything but money. And the other one is Kate. In pure Shakespearan form they both learn what pushes the other's buttons and 'accidently' fall in love because they both enjoyed the challenge and they both learn to give as well as recieve from the relationship.

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Originally Posted by Languid Bree

1) The Induction sets up the theme of "All is not as it seems" at the beggining of the play, does this relate to Kates final speach?
2) Would Queen Elizabeth sympathise with the rebellious Kate's attitude, and how do you think she would wish to see the play ended?
3) How subtle do you think Bianca is in her stringing along of the men, and in which ways does she wind up Kate.

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1) All of Shakespeare's plays deal with this theme. In terms of Kate's final speech, that depends on how you believe she states her final lines. Feminists like to pretend that Kate speaks her lines with irony. If you think so, then there you go. If you think (as I do) that she means them, then perhaps the theme could be applied to the fact that Kate wasn't who she initially seemed to be.

2) Kate's "rebellion" is no such thing - at least in terms of having a reason. Kate is out-of-control and bent on venting her rage on the entire world around her. Elizabeth would not approve because rebellion - especially in a Christian Queen's kingdom - is one of the worst of offenses. Obedience to the crown was mandatory, and I doubt that the queen would have sanctioned Kate's reckless behavior.

3) Your last question is unclear. Have you read the play? Bianca's final words to Lucentio proves that she was the real "shrew" of the play - her manipulative seduction of Lucentio is contrasted with Kate's overt misbehavior.

"feminists like to pretend..."- it appears you don't sympathize with kate.
feminists don't pretend, they THINK!

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Originally Posted by equalrights

"feminists like to pretend..."- it appears you don't sympathize with kate.
feminists don't pretend, they THINK!

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Perhaps you ought to spend less time lecturing posters on what you THINK they said and read what they really said. My use of "pretend" deals with their attempt to warp Shakespeare to their ideology. You cannot imprint a 20th century ideology upon a 16th century play.

What's funny to me is that our contemporary culture is so hypersensitive to issues pertaining to gender and power that any (and I mean ANY) suggestion that a man is more competent and in-control than a woman and/or might have to somehow intervene as Petruchio did in Kate's out-of-control life iss somehow wrong - and yet, a perusal of the average TV sitcom will show the same thing (genders reversed, of course): stupid men who are only able to get anything done because of the smart, competent woman in their lives. Nice.

The issue in Taming isn't gender: it's about who we think ourselves to be, and how sometimes we are incapable of breaking out of the behavioral prisons we sometimes find ourselves in.

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Originally Posted by Redzeppelin

Perhaps you ought to spend less time lecturing posters on what you THINK they said and read what they really said. My use of "pretend" deals with their attempt to warp Shakespeare to their ideology. You cannot imprint a 20th century ideology upon a 16th century play.

What's funny to me is that our contemporary culture is so hypersensitive to issues pertaining to gender and power that any (and I mean ANY) suggestion that a man is more competent and in-control than a woman and/or might have to somehow intervene as Petruchio did in Kate's out-of-control life iss somehow wrong - and yet, a perusal of the average TV sitcom will show the same thing (genders reversed, of course): stupid men who are only able to get anything done because of the smart, competent woman in their lives. Nice.

The issue in Taming isn't gender: it's about who we think ourselves to be, and how sometimes we are incapable of breaking out of the behavioral prisons we sometimes find ourselves in.

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We are on the social contract bit again, though I don't see the lines as ironic, I see them as healthy. Kate originally fights against Petruchio, but it isn't until she sacrifices some of her "rights" to be annoying and rebellious that she finally finds herself in a healthy relationship. The way I interpreted it is "Since everything the husband is doing is going to be in your interest (I.E. He is going to make money, therefore you should play along) you must make it possible for him to please him. At the beginning/middle she fights him, until she is nearly starved to death. Whereas once she agrees to calm down, and actually support her husband and relationship, we see that he seems to try and please her, and she seems to be more happy. That is really how I see the last monologue at the end. Whereas one may think he is just poking fun at how week women are, we must also realize how Shakespeare thought. You see from other plays, and his poems specifically his sonnets that he clearly didn't think women less than men (in my opinion, some would argue that he was writing his poetry for a male lover though I don't agree with that belief) He simply sees marriage as a social contract between a man and a woman, where the woman stops fighting the husband, and instead allows him to go out of his way to please her.

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Originally Posted by JBI

We are on the social contract bit again, though I don't see the lines as ironic, I see them as healthy. Kate originally fights against Petruchio, but it isn't until she sacrifices some of her "rights" to be annoying and rebellious that she finally finds herself in a healthy relationship. The way I interpreted it is "Since everything the husband is doing is going to be in your interest (I.E. He is going to make money, therefore you should play along) you must make it possible for him to please him. At the beginning/middle she fights him, until she is nearly starved to death. Whereas once she agrees to calm down, and actually support her husband and relationship, we see that he seems to try and please her, and she seems to be more happy. That is really how I see the last monologue at the end. Whereas one may think he is just poking fun at how week women are, we must also realize how Shakespeare thought. You see from other plays, and his poems specifically his sonnets that he clearly didn't think women less than men (in my opinion, some would argue that he was writing his poetry for a male lover though I don't agree with that belief) He simply sees marriage as a social contract between a man and a woman, where the woman stops fighting the husband, and instead allows him to go out of his way to please her.

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I don't seriously disagree with much of anything you said, but I think you play up the "starving" part a bit much. There was nothing in the play that suggested that Kate was ever in any danger. Taming strikes me as a sort of renaissance "I Love Lucy" episode - you're never really worried that the characters are going to get hurt in any serious way.

In reply to Cercia I do not believe that Petruchio is a "shrew", rather that Shakespeare put in important lines of dialogue for him that represent his true character. This is notably apparent when Petruchio makes sure the tailor is paid after he rips the dress to shreds, pretending that it is unfit.
Petruchio is forced to act like the brash, unfeeling type because Kate is incredibly difficult.

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Originally Posted by beavadam

In reply to Cercia I do not believe that Petruchio is a "shrew", rather that Shakespeare put in important lines of dialogue for him that represent his true character. This is notably apparent when Petruchio makes sure the tailor is paid after he rips the dress to shreds, pretending that it is unfit.
Petruchio is forced to act like the brash, unfeeling type because Kate is incredibly difficult.

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I'll agree with that. What many readers fail to consider is that Petruchio may very well be putting on an elaborate act in order to mirror to Kate her own out-of-control behavior.