The Taming of The Shrew

1) Who is Petruchio’s servant?

Germio

2) How was The Taming of The Shrew accomplished? Discuss the process and why or how it worked leading to the final submission?

The taming of the shrew basically is the analogy of refining Katherine, the rebellious, sharp-tongued and hot-tempered young woman into becoming a gentle and obedient wife. Shrews are eminent for being fiercely defensive, driving off competitors, and unlike most mammals, some species of shrews are venomous. Regardless how closely resembled Katherine’s characters to the shrews, to soften a person like Katherine is an absolute different from taming a mammal like a shrew, and on top of that there are other personality factors to be considered. Katherine is a human, a being with feelings and needs, and not to overlook that a woman her age must also have hopes for her future to come, no matter how hard-hearted and indifferent she might appeared. How was the taming accomplished? The convenient personality of Petruchio and his method of having his way with Katherine made the taming not just accomplished but achieved with wonderful success.

Petruchio’s opportunistic quality convinced not only himself but Katherine as well. To note how different Bianca was from her sister Katherina, that was how different Petruchio and Lucentio, Bianca’s naïve suitor. As a perfect match to Katherina’s shrewish nature, Petruchio was characterized as a quick-witted man with sharper tongue than her, unpredictable and unabashedly selfish. By seeing everything as achievable, he used reverse psychology to make Katherine submit herself. He agreed with her objection by taking the same position as her but with more radical aggressiveness. Before Petruchio came into her life, obviously no one ever told her how beautiful she was and at the same contradicted everything she said. So used of having things her way, Katherine showed her interest in Petruchio the first time they met when he came to ask for her hand in marriage from her father. From Act Two, Scene One, beginning at the line 253 to line 273, Katherine still showed sarcasm but significantly quieter than the early meeting. By comparing her to the Dian, Diana the woodland goddess and patroness of chastity and hunting, Petruchio indirectly gave her something she hardly get before, a kind word or to be exact, a flattering statement. This somewhat different approach that was never tested on her by any man maybe including her own father melted her.

When Katherine said to her father that she must dance bare-foot on Bianca’s wedding day, indirectly she showed insecurity and panic nervousness of not getting married. Dancing bare-foot on the wedding day of younger sister is an old custom for unmarried elder sister. The proposal from a man like Petruchio does not come every day and maybe that was why she did not hardly objected the idea of getting married to him. Confidently, Petruchio said to her, he is the man born to tame her and change her from a wild Kate to a household Kate. He never asked for her to say yes, he just assumed that she will not say no and that made a difference to Katherine.

Why and how the process of taming Katherina worked thus leading to the final submission? Looking at the process, it started off with persuasive courtship of Petruchio, followed by the chaotic wedding, and later moved out to live at Petruchio’s country house. The final process was when Katherina’s devotion towards her husband was shown in front of Katherine’s family. The process worked triumphantly because Petruchio is the right man for Kate and vice versa.

Drove by the motivation of substantial amount of dowry offered if he married Katherina, Petruchio showed great enthusiasm in courting her. Yet, after some time fighting her tongue, he seemed fascinated by her ultimate rejection. At some point, the audience no longer convinced that Petruchio was only interested in the dowry and no longer convinced with Katherine “whole heartedly” rejecting the courtship. He twisted her harsh remarks into sexual comical replies as they were testing each other’s mettle and declared their own. Convinced that Katherine will later agree to marry him, he asked no agreement like any other normal courting instead he just declared his own decision to be married to her. The persuasive courting was not the only insult to Katherina, Petruchio did worse on their wedding by dressing ridiculously. By giving an excuse of a garment is just simply a garment and the person beneath remains the same no matter what disguise is worn, he still got his way to marry her even though he was late for his own wedding. Later after the wedding, skipping the festive dinner prepared for him and his new bride, Petruchio announced they need to leave and took the unwilling Kate with him. Up until that point, Petruchio remained persistent and hardly bend in his decision. In the beginning, he was just interested in her dowry, later he seemed to have genuine interest in her but at this point, Petruchio looked as if he just wanted to break her spirit and destroy her pride. Once Petruchio has removed Katherina from her familiar environment, he went to the process of taming her. Taming of Kate was equivalence with taming hawk in the Elizabethan era. The objective of taming is not to destroy the highly-prized nature of the hawk, but the bird is deprived of food and sleep until it yields to the owner’s will. To Elizabethan audience, hawking was a familiar sport so the analogy offered a richer insight of Petruchio’s intention and admiration for his wife’s nature. He went to the extreme and finally she yielded to what he wanted her to be. The fact that they complimented each other should not be neglected. Petruchio’s nature softened Kate’s and Kate’s devotion strengthened their marriage which is why they complete each other’s life. The more he pushed, the more she liked it. The more she fought, the more he liked it.

However, to put the ending of the play as final submission is disagreeable. Kate’s wits can still be seen in her last speech and she still remained who she really was till the end. It’s just that she learnt to bend and yield as a wife to her husband. The satirical ending was just what the audience in that era wanted to see, what they expect to happen in the end. What Shakespeare wanted us to see is that it is not wrong for us to lower down our ego a little when there is a need for it. If by saying what Petruchio wants to hear can help Katherina get what she wants, then there is nothing wrong with it. It is not a submission, it is just merely taking advantage of the available alternative. By being a shrew, her father let her have things her way, and by being an obedient wife to Petruchio, she get herself a wonderful husband, but Katherine is still herself, a witty, intelligent and proud woman.

3) In your opinion, what are the two main issues in the play and how was it done?

The first issue in this play is about the changes of attitude towards inequalities of gender in the 16^th century. This was when The Elizabethan Age is viewed so highly because of the contrasts with the periods before and after. It was a brief period of largely internal peace between the English Reformation and the battles between Protestants and Catholics. The ruler at that time was Queen Elizabeth I, yet Elizabethan society was still practicing patriarchal, meaning that men were considered to be the leaders and women as their inferiors. The long established view of women as men’s inferior and his greatest enemy was sustained by strong Biblical authority. But forces like the Reformation and the humanist movement began to soften this hostility. The Taming of The Shrew reflected all aspects of the debate of traditional subordination of women, potential qualities of the nature of women and so on, which was why the Elizabethans felt especially alive with this play as the changes of attitude towards women and marriage developed during the sixteenth century.

The fact that Queen Elizabeth’s time of ruling brought prosperity to the people better than the rulers before her hardly changed the way 16^th century societies perceived the importance of equality between men and women. Even the education differed on who should be educated and who should not. It was necessary for boys to attend grammar school, but girls were not allowed in any place of education. Only the wealthier people allowed their daughters to be taught at home. Take Bianca and Katherina for example, both of them were educated at home. They were given private tutorials at home to learn music and foreign language while Lucentio can go to universities to further his studies. It was unfair to let one gender improve themselves and the other to go on with their life just because of the possible prospect of women to become more superior than men when they are educated. Why Katherine cannot just be wooed by any man? That is because she stands in her own level, a place of no idiotic man can reach. A man with no prior knowledge or education will not be able to use allusions such as the gods and goddesses of Greek and Romans (Sybil, Xanthippe, Leda, Paris, Helen etc), and the characters in poetries and literary works. Petruchio’s constant usage of these allusions indicated that he is a man with knowledge and education. Katherina is not at fault for wanting someone she deserved, because that was what the other women at that time wanted for themselves but were afraid to show it.

Courtship and marriage also changed from whole dependency on men to sharing the task equally. A partnership in marriage is not necessarily expected but from having one utmost leader (men) in the family to democratic institution (equal share of men and women) changed the previous authoritarian marriage system. The love that Petruchio felt eventually towards his wife changed the way his character was seen by the audience. The idea on his marriage changed from dowry as sole motivation to obtaining love and respect from his wife. The concept of superiority and inferiority applies to most houses therefore the society has the expectation of hundred percent submission to the husband to determine whether the woman is a good woman or not. In this play, the appreciation to marriage institution was shown when a man had to earn his respect, and same goes to his wife, she also need to earn her place in the house. Marriage was no longer seen only as a way to produce children and avoid fornication but also to offer contentment based on personal relationship through love and companionship. These changes of attitudes towards inequalities of gender in the Elizabethan era can be seen through the softening of hostility of women to the society in terms of belief, the capability and worthy of women to be educated, and the celebration of marriage as the foundation of all social order.

The second issue of this play is the neglecting of ethical aspect in achieving goal. Ethics is not merely Aristotle’s theoretical study, it is something that people should consider in everything they wanted to do. Unlike any intellectual capacity, virtues of character are dispositions to act in certain ways in response to similar situations, the habits of behaving in a certain way or in unethical ways to achieve goal or personal desire. By using deceit upon innocent others and bribery to blind people, human made their way easily to have what they want. Lucentio, Tranio, Hortensio and the Pedant used disguise to masquerade as other character that they are not, Minola Baptista used bribery to get rid of his hard to win daughter- Katherine, and Petruchio imposed mastery on his wife to bend her to his will.

Lucentio is the son of Vincentio the rich merchant. He went travelling to find a university to learn about moral philosophy. Instead of finding out where is the university, he bumped into a very beautiful girl, and he got love struck at the very first time. The abandonment of moral issue in this part is when Lucentio forget all about his real intention to travel and worked on courting the beautiful Bianca. He resigned from his official place as a master and had his servant to play his character. He even condones the misuses of his father’s name to win the woman’s heart. Apparently Lucentio is not the only character in the play to disguise himself and play another character; Tranio disguised himself as Lucentio, Hortensio became the Music Tutor and the Pedant disguised himself as Vincentio, Lucentio’s father. The disguise scam is a plot to get close to Bianca. To wait until Bianca is allowed to be courted means that they will have to wait until Katherina gets married and by pretending to be someone else, they will have their way. The lies just kept going on and on but no one feels wrong about it because they get away with it. Now where is the moral fiber to be valued if every one used deceit and phony words as a means to get what they want?

It is justifiable that Minola Baptista worked hard to make sure that Katherine got married before she got herself into the age of spinsterhood but the way he used money to get people interested in his daughter seemed too much like he was trying to get rid of her. Katherine was lucky her husband later fell in love with her but what if Petruchio turned out to be an irresponsible materialistic man? He would have made her life miserable after he finished the dowry and there will be nothing that Katherine can do about it. Even before meeting Kate, Petruchio had already have the idea of transforming her when he mentioned about the Florentius’ love (I.2.68), meaning that he is ready to face the Sybil or the Xanthippe and deal with her as long as he get the money and lived wealthily after the marriage. Katherine was bargained like an object just because she was not as desirable as her sister. The higher the dowry offered by her father, the more insulted she felt, in contrast with her sister, the higher the bidding offered by the suitors, the happier her father gets. If the marriage was for the best of her, then why bargain her like an object to be bartered at the market.

Imposing hunger and desperation on someone else to tame her like an animal is out of question. Katherine is still a human no matter how harsh and out of control she might be, but to inflict such pain on her, to break her spirit by tormenting her nature as a human being is unethical and immoral. She deserved to be treated better than that. If the ‘taming school’ is meant for a hawk, save it for hawks only. Katherine is a person, and to break her stubbornness by using hunger and thirst surely would worked, she is indeed a human being who deserved to be treated better than that. As a conclusion, morality should come first before goal attainment. There should be a boundary in hurting others even for a good purpose.