by Pierce Davis, Blogging Circle 4
I wanted to continue the point I was making in class that I believe Taming of the Shrew is intended to be a lot simpler than we are making it out to be, at least within the particular format we are reading it. It is my belief that it is simply a comedy without a great deal of complex metaphor concerning gender. That being said, the comments it does make on gender, while seemingly misogynistic to us as 21stcentury Americans, were intended to be taken at face value and solidify if not justify the gender roles established in Shakespeare’s time. There is collection of research done by Heather Sharnette that resulted in her writing a piece called “Elizabethan Women” in which she writes, “Women who perhaps suffered most in this period were, ironically, those like the Queen who did not wish to marry… Marriage was seen as the desirable state for both men and women, and single women were sometimes looked upon with suspicion. It was mainly single women who were accused of being witches by their neighbours” (Sharnette). Our initial impression of Kate is far from positive as she is seen screaming at her family and suitors,
“I’faith, sir, you shall never need to fear:
I wis it is not half way to her heart;
But if it were, doubt not her care should be
To comb your noddle with a three-legg’d stool
And paint your face and use you like a fool.” (1.1)
only to later bind and harass her own sister,
“Good sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself,
To make a bondmaid and a slave of me;
That I disdain: but for these other gawds,
Unbind my hands, I’ll pull them off myself,
Yea, all my raiment, to my petticoat;
Or what you will command me will I d’o,
So well I know my duty to my elders. (2.1.1-7)
Of course when she begins to be abused by Petruccio it is our instinct, as contemporary citizens of the world and not total woman-hating psychos, to pity her. Yet in pitying her we forget that Shakespeare set up her character so that we would not like her. If he wanted her to be viewed as a victim, why would he not portray her as a victim from the beginning of the play? It is true that Pretruccio is being cruel to Kate, but the dialogue being used is very witty and silly and you have to imagine that Kate is also being played by a male actor who is strutting himself about the stage like a fool the entire time. The disturbing imagery we imagine while reading the play looked far more ridiculous and light hearted when presented at the globe theatre centuries ago. None of this is meant to argue that domestic abuse in any form should be a source of comedy, but at the time it was a far more common place practice. For a person from that time it is not difficult to see how the silly mistreatment of a cross-dressed actor acting like a mad witch could have come off as comical. Though we may see Kate taking a husband as her losing her independence, the audience of the time saw it as gaining social capital through becoming a wife, gaining a rich husband, and benefiting her family through a mutually beneficial marriage. It also frees Bianca for a marriage of love which she is able to have some choice in, a concept the audience would love because Bianca is portrayed as the darling of the play. In the final speech Kate delivers she professes the virtue of a model wife. Our contemporary worldview has us viewing Petruccio as a villain who has gotten his way, but the characters as well as audience members were probably seeing him as a hero not only for helping Bianca be able to marry, but also for helping Kate grow to become a leader among women, guiding them to be obedient wives and mothers. The argument can be made that we not have the full version of the play and perhaps Shakespeare intended something differently, or didn’t quite express himself in the way he intended. When we reviewed Sly’s alternate ending in class it certainly presented things differently. However, what we have to work wiith in the text we are provided doesn’t leave me with any conclusion other than Shakespeare making a nod to women, but ultimately reinforcing their role as obedient wives and mothers.
http://www.elizabethi.org/contents/women/
Hi Pierce!
I see where your coming from, and admire the thoroughness of your argument, specifically the research you brought by Heather Sharnette. I also agree with you about the commentary this play is making on gender. However, I kind of disagree about this being a play for a “simpler audience”. Sure, I think it’s meant to be entertaining for everyone, but I do think that there’s more to it. I think, for instance, the fact that this is a play within a play means that any initial or automatic reaction becomes a bit deformed, at least to a certain extent. Secondly, Petruchio doesn’t seem like he’d be that likable, even back then, simply because of his upfront greed and the fact that never does any bit of love-professing to Katherina. Of course you could counter that with saying, as you put it, that Katherina is not supposed to be likable either so maybe the audience would be entertained by how she was treated. However, she is silent for most of the time she is abused. Also, the fact that every character is explicitly fake, so that the audience doesn’t even get that bit of suspension of disbelief, means that identity itself becomes the clown. So, I guess what I think is that maybe it’s the notion of the higher class that’s being made fun of: Sure, they can wear the costumes and learn the speech and be “tamed” to fit their “correct gender role”, but at the end of the day, it’s all just a bunch of actors in wigs being goofy, just like Sly.
Hi Pierce! Wow I really enjoyed your theory behind Shakespeare’s intentions of this play. The fact that this play was written as a comedy, but seemed like it was a tragedy is questionable, and I do see how people today would perceive this play as one that is anti-feminist as well as cruel to the character Kate. I have to say I was very anti-Petruccio, but now when looking at it in more of a comedic sense I do agree that Shakespeare wanted us to hate the character of Kate. This play seemed complicated and deep to me, especially because it is a play within a play, but when you broke it down and focused in on the whole comedic aspect of it the characters, and plot made it seem a lot simpler. Great insight, made me give the character of Petruccio a second chance, and see Kate as a joke , rather than someone who is being tortured.
Pierce, I definitely agree with your reading of the play! Because of the world that we live in, it is often difficult to view literature without our own personal worldview imposed onto it. Yet, with a piece like “Taming of the Shrew,” it is absolutely necessary that we remember the time during which the piece was written, for it shapes our understanding of the story as a whole. While it may be true that what is happening to Katherine is a bit tragic, this was not the intention of Shakespeare, and you’re right in reminding us that this is, in fact, a comedy, and should be viewed as such. Great job!
Pierce,
I am still unsure how I feel about The Taming of the Shrew as a cultural critique or subliminal work.
While I think that you are right that it is interesting that Shakespeare might have chosen to choose a more relaxed and tame character, the whole idea of the play is “The Taming of the Shrew.” I think having Katherine be a less obnoxious and boisterous character would lessen from the tension of Petruccio’s taming. If Kate was a more “simple” character like Bianca, she would not be a very interesting shrew to see tamed. So some of her villainy can be attributed to Shakespeare furthering the plot.
The problem I have with your reading is that I really can’t understand Petruccio being anything but a villian to even a historical audience. We see him slap and beat his servants, as well as torturing Katherine, and I don’t believe that the audience would see that as in anyway heroic, perhaps they might just accept it as a fact of life, but the audience is likely to be made up in some part of servants, and the lower class populace. Seeing Petruccio beat and dictate to them seems like it is an obvious attempt to make Petruccio stick out as evil. No other character in the play sticks out to me as rotten as Petruccio.
I think, on the outside, whether Shakespeare intended for it or not, the play is about the domestication of a woman, who is seen as animalistic (shrewish) by barbaric methods (torture). I’m not sold on the idea that Shakespeare intended the play to be taken at face value, but I think you do make a good argument for that case. Knowing whether the domestic abuse of a cross-dressed actor was humorous and absurd or violent and offensive to Shakespeare’s audience is really the crux to the point. I don’t think we can ever really know how much of the play is pander, and how much is cultural critique. It’s a shame really, as the cultural critique seems to me as something that Shakespeare is heralded as a genius for.
Hi Pierce!
I agree with the point that we are looking too much into the play, the audience of the times didn’t analyze the way we do today. I feel, at least for it is difficult to take myself out of the mind set of today, seriously is not how we should take this play, you are right, this is a comedy. We should view it as a comedy and not a tragedy.
I really love your point that we as a modern audience may be over-analyzing this play, as I agree and would say that over-analysis is very common when it comes to early works in which the author is deceased. When it comes to intention, I would say that you are right on the mark and that Shakespeare really did want the audience to hate Kate and to see how marriage really “tamed” her. The aspect of a man paying Kate is quite amusing, and I doubt any member of the Elizabethan audience would think twice about her speech at the end as being anything more than her proclaiming that listening to your husband is the key to audience, which unfortunately at the time seemed to prove true.
I hear a lot of handwringing and mental gymnastics in these arguments. But, as an actor who has performed in six different productions of the play, I can tell you that Shakespeare was not writing a misogynistic play. It is a farce, full of truly idiotic characters, but it is also a love story. All the talk of how women in Shakespeare’s time were treated poorly, and how this was expected by his audiences, is ignoring the possibilities of Theatre. I will not go into an analogy of how Kate and Pretruccio are simply two brilliant humans who are fed up with the foolishness of people around them, but I will ask: If patriarchy and misogyny are his goal, why aren’t ANY other women in his canon treated the same way? “The proof is in the pudding,” or more plainly, a good director can tell this story.