Melissa
The common theme of manipulation running through the characters in Shakespeare’s plays is exemplified through the character “Petruchio” in The Taming of the Shrew. This is demonstrated through societal influence, personal gain and the final product.
Societal influence is an important theme applied to the character of Petruchio. Society’s expectations, norms, values and behaviours were rigid during Elizabethan times. The first example of this unyielding expectation is presented through Petruchio’s act of marrying Katherina for her money. Petruchio states,
“Signior Hortensio, 'twixt such friends as we Few words suffice; and therefore, if thou know One rich enough to be Petruchio's wife, As wealth is burden of my wooing dance, Be she as foul as was Florentius' love, As old as Sibyl and as curst and shrewd As Socrates' Xanthippe, or a worse, She moves me not, or not removes, at least, Affection's edge in me, were she as rough As are the swelling Adriatic seas: I come to wive it wealthily in Padua; If wealthily, then happily in Padua” (I.ii.63-74).
It becomes evident here that Petruchio’s desire to marry for money led him to decide to manipulate his future wife because the wealthier he will be, the happier he will be. Society unofficially stated, in those times, that money brought happiness as well as a multitude of other things. Unofficially, society stated that women had to get married and men had to inherit dowries and that men had to be authoritative and women had to be submissive. All of these aspects led Petruchio to tame Katherina because it was expected in Elizabethan times. Therefore, Petruchio conformed according to societal discourse and he in turn, tamed or conformed Katherina to those same expectations.
Personal gain is another aspect relating to Petruchio’s manipulation. Personal gain will be discussed through love, money and status. Petruchio was able to manipulate Katherina with the intention of obtaining her wealth and in turn gaining status and love. Money was the driving force that let Petruchio into the arms of Katherina. Through her money, Petruchio could obtain wealth; and wealth in Elizabethan times equaled status. Although Petruchio gained love and status through manipulation, he also gained love through manipulation as well. He tamed Katherina into becoming a wife that could be accepted by society. He denied her food, sleep, clothing and authority to make her a wife that he could love. Petruchio altered her shrewish characteristics and modified her behaviour. In the end, Katherina became the wife that Petruchio wanted. Her brutish manner was transformed into compliant conduct, which was easier to love.
The final product is the last aspect of Petruchio’s character that will be discussed in terms of love and to show Katherina how she acts. As previously discussed, Petruchio gained love through his manipulation. He tamed Katherina so that he may have a wife he could love and whom could be accepted by society. This is evident through the final scene. After Katherina makes her final speech, Petruchio raises her up from her knees and kisses her. This symbolizes the equality that has been established between them. Petruchio’s manipulation allowed him to tame his wife into a wife he could truly love.
Petruchio utilizes manipulation to show Katherina how she acts. He tames her “…by burlesquing her behaviour, so that she sees herself as others see her, and finally 'sees the joke'” (Oliver, 34). He uses the same methods on Katherina as she employed on others. This ironic situation led up to her submission and in turn tamed the woman that was once a shrew.
Silvia/Patricia
The role of women in Elizabethan society is crucial when explaining Katharina’s personality in The Taming of the Shrew. First of all, women were in a situation of inferiority if we compare them with men. The patriarchal society of the time treated women as objects and they were subject to male authority (fathers and husbands mainly). “Male supremacy was a matter of fathers as well as of husbands” (Saccio). Since they did not have independence, they needed to find a husband in order to be socially accepted, but that choice was always left to the father. Moreover, “disobedience was very badly seen, as it meant a crime against their religion” (Alchin). That is why Katharina’s personality was seen as totally inappropriate for a woman of her class. But the important thing here is that she was physically and psychologically crushed by this patriarchal society.
What we are going to discuss now is Katharina’s personal gain. Since the beginning of the play, Katharina loses continually. For example: her freedom to remain single, or to choose a husband that she really likes, the opportunity to have an education (her father is only worried in Bianca’s studies), or even the freedom to express herself is badly seen (the fact that “she is unwilling to play the role of the maiden daughter” Gardner and Brian). Nevertheless, the others gain at her expense, for example: her father manages to get rid of her; Petruchio obtains a considerable amount of money with her dowry, and at the end his ‘shrew’ has become a mild wife. But not everything is negative for Katharina: taking into account the society of her time, she has also benefited from her situation. She manages to get married and thereby she has ensured her future, because “her only hope to find a secure and happy place in the world lies in finding a husband” (Gardner and Brian). Finally, she has found emotional stability with Petruchio, because even tough their feelings were not clear at the beginning, they are both in love by the end of the play.
Now we are going to discuss the final product of the play. As it always happens in Shakespeare’s comedies, they all end merrily. In The Taming of the Shrew, the initial conflict, which was Katharina’s spinsterhood, has been resolved with happy marriage. And the other conflict, Kate’s shrewish behaviour, has also ended well. The social order has been restored, because even her sister has married the man she loves. Since Katharina has changed her social situation completely, she will now be respected and accepted by her family and acquaintances. It is important the fact that she has gained in self-knowledge, and that she has changed her personality but is not ashamed of it, as we can see in her final speech. The by-product of this situation is joy, love and harmony.
We have seen that Kate is manipulated throughout the play by her family and by Petruchio, but she is also capable of influencing those around her. Her sister is regarded as the perfect girl, and is also the favourite of her father and suitors. But actually, she is the opposite, because at the end of the play the roles are reversed. For that reason Katharina wants to take revenge on her, and her aim is to show Bianca up. It is not a matter of jealousy, but of justice, because Kate has had to bear the humiliation of being always ‘the lost sheep’. Even though she has been manipulated by others her whole life, she has learned from Petruchio to play the game. And that is what she does, especially in the final speech at the end of the play. Another important aspect is that she also takes revenge on Bianca’s suitors, because they were always despising her, but, nevertheless, she ends up being the perfect wife they had always dreamed of.
At the beginning of the play there was chaos, and this being a comedy, we would expect a restoration of the order. But in this play there are some aspects which remain unsolved. For example: the fact that both sisters do not reconcile, because Kate is only interested in taking revenge on Bianca. With the help of Petruchio, she shows that she is a much better wife and woman, whereas Bianca had always been deceitful. Taking into account the final scene, in which Bianca does not behave as we would expect, we can presume that her relationship with Lucentio will deteriorate soon, because he fell in love with “a seemingly flawless Bianca” (123helpme). In the case of Katharina and Petruchio, we can deduce that they will be happier because they get to know each other quite well and their love is not idealized. But generally, we can say that the initial chaos is restored with the marriages and with Kate’s ‘apparent’ change of personality. That is the key point in this play: “nothing is what it seems to be at first sight”.
Laura
Society
is very influential in the character of Bianca. She is a young girl and her
father decides that she will not marry until her sister finds someone to marry
too. Bianca must be obedient to her father, because not doing so would be
considered socially unacceptable. We can see this in the reaction of most part
of the characters when they see and listen to Katharine, that
is considered a shrew because she does not follow the conventions established
for women at that time.
But at the same time, we observe that Bianca
has her own strategies to escape from this society structure. She can show her
real face when she plays with her wooers Hortensio
and Lucentio. He flirts with both on them, in order
to maintain their attention on her. Like G. R. Hibbard
says we can see that Bianca controls the situation when, being with Hortensio and Lucentio acting as
tutors, she says: “I am no breeching scholar in the schools, / I’ll not be tied
to hours nor ‘pointed times, / But learn my lessons as I please myself”. She
has realized that in her society deception and cheating is a good weapon for
women to use.
Bianca’s
personal gain is to get what she really wants. She knows that acting as the
perfect, sweet woman will make her achieve what she desires. She has more
wooers than her sisters because of her personality. She acts as a gentile girl
that obeys her father, so the men that try to gain her heart and marry her
consider Bianca a submissive woman, the way a woman has to be, a tamed one. She
plays this role because she sees that on the contrary she wouldn’t be able to
achieve her wishes.
We
know that she’s acting, that what she shows in front of her father and the
other men is a mere performance because at the end of the play, when she has
marry Lucentio, she disobeys him. She shows her real
face, her own character.
The new order that is established at the end
of the play is not the typical happy ending. The plot of Bianca, which is the
subplot of the play, is a story that contrasts with the principal plot. Bianca
is happy at this point of the story, she has got what she wanted, she has
married Lucentio and now she acts the way she wants
to act, but Lucentio is discovering a new woman in
Bianca, a woman that is not the sweet, gentle and modest young girl he though
she was.
As
a conclusion I see that first impressions are not what they seem, and that one
has to look deeper and not simply see what’s on the surface.
Caterina
Oberon is a character of Midsummer night’s dream, he is the king of the fairies and lives in a supernatural world. He can control much of the events that ensue in the woods.He is arguing with Titania (his queen) over a changeling: he desires a child exchanged by fairies for another but Titania refuses to relinquish control of this young good-looking boy.
To obtain the boy he devises a plan to steal it, he wants to manipulate the situation in favour of himself through the medium of a spell. He calls Puck and orders him to find a flower whose juices cause on to love the first person sees after putting them on; he wants Puck puts it on the eyes of Titania, so she’ll fall in love with the next creature she sees and he can take away the child when she would be off-guard.
Oberon assists a discussion between Demetrio and Helena, who are passing through the forest and understands the girl loves the boy but he refuses her; Oberon decides to manipulate also this situation, calls Puck, who had been able to find the flower, and gives him one more task: putting juices on the eyes of the boy to solve their situation.
Unlikely Puck fails his work because puts juices on the wrong eyes, Lysander’s eyes, who already has a girlfriend, Hermia.The couples have met in the same place of the forest and something is wrong: Demetrio and Lysander are now courting the same girl and Hermia is despaired.In the main time, Titania, for the effect of the flower is fallen in love with Bottom (a player of a troupe which was discussing the logistics of their play in the forest) who has a donkey’s head because of a Puck’s joke.
Oberon ultimately steals the boy while Titania is sleeping with Bottom, so his plan comes to a good conclusion.However he loves Titania and ends his joke on her ; he awakes Titania and transforms Botton back to a human, now they can make up and love each other again. Oberon also realizes Puck has caused problems with loving couples so, orders him to make a thick fog to separate the four person and force them into a deep sleep, so the spell can wear off and all the lovers can be happy together in Athens.
Oberon is able to obtain what he wants because of his witty genius and most of all because of the help of magic .
In the fantasy world every dream can become true and every desire can be realized. Oberon is the king of this fairy and fantasy world so he can do whatever he wants, manipulating all situations to his taste; but in the end it’s evident that he only wants to make everyone happy so we can see that his manipulation is not evil. He does it as it was a joke which can finish whenever he wants and it’s true.
Ana
DOES TITANIA MANIPULATE,
OR IS SHE MANIPULATED?
At first sight, one could think Titania, one of the characters in Midsummer Night’s Dream, by Shakespeare, is a great manipulator, since she appears as the queen of the fairies and the fantastic world, which has power over the real and the unreal. However, I personally think she does not manipulate as much as she is manipulated, and I will try to show this idea through this paper.
In her first appearance in the play, Titania seems to be at the same level of power as Oberon. Both of them appear on stage followed by their own trains, and from different doors (II, I: stage direction, between 59-60) which seems to be opposite, but at the same level too. She herself shows this equality of power, as the “parents and original” (II, I: 117) of the real world.
They have a discussion in which they show their mutual jealousy, as Titania indicates in her third speech: “These are the forgeries of jealousy” (II, I: 81), and this jealousy is the main reason for the manipulation Titania suffers and imposes over others. However, the jealousy felt by Oberon is mainly due to his desire to have the changeling boy Titania has obtained from an Indian woman who “being mortal, of that boy did die” (II, I: 35).
In the beginning, Titania is able to maintain the boy with her, despite Oberon’s attitude. She does not allow him to have the boy as his henchman. Thus, at this moment, she is quite immovable; she is not manipulated by Oberon. Nevertheless, I personally think she is not as powerful as she seems in front of Oberon, since she does not really argue with him about the child, but she simply tells him she is not going to give him the changeling boy. She just leaves with her train because they “shall chide downright, if I longer stay” (II, I: 45), which seems to be an excuse not to keep on arguing with Oberon, from my point of view.
This is one of the moments in which we can see Titania can only firmly manipulate her fairies, but not anyone else. And this idea is reinforced if we pay attention to the rest of the play, specifically to the subplot of the peculiar love story between Titania and Bottom.
As we know from the play, Titania falls in love with Bottom because Oberon squeezes a special flower on her eyes (II, II: stage direction, between 27-28). Once again, we can see how Titania is manipulated by Oberon, and how she manipulates her fairies to take care of Bottom, her “sweet love” (IV, I: 28); even Bottom takes power himself to manipulate Titania’s fairies for his own benefit, to scratch his head and to get honey to eat (IV, I: 7, 10-18). Thus, I would even say Titania is being manipulated by Bottom, since she does not prevent him from taking benefit from her and her train.
Anyway, this manipulation by Bottom over Titania is the product of another kind of manipulation at a higher level, which is Oberon’s manipulation over her. Titania agrees with everything Bottom does because he is “artificially” in love with him because of Oberon’s spell.
Oberon, by manipulating Titania, is able to achieve his main aim: the changeling boy. However, the scene in which this boy is transferred to him is not directly shown within the play, but indirectly shown through Oberon’s speech to Puck in which he tells he had “upbraid her, and fall out with her” (IV, I: 51) till finally he asked Titania “of her changeling child; which straight she gave [him]” (IV, I: 60-61). In this scene, Oberon blackmails Titania, in a way. He promises to undo the spell in return for getting the Indian boy.
Once Oberon has obtained this boy, we find the weakest Titania in the play. She herself recognises Oberon as his “lord” (IV, I: 100), and asks him to tell her everything that has happened, since her love story with Bottom seems to have been a dream to her.
Thus, this is the highest manipulation Titania suffers. She is so manipulated by Oberon that she is not able to distinguish a dream from something which has really happened to her, since, although Titania belongs to the fantastic world, she has been in love with Bottom, this has not been a simple dream.
In conclusion, I would answer to the question at the beginning of this paper that Titania is manipulated rather than manipulating others by herself. Her main manipulator is Oberon, of course, as it has been shown here. Although she seems to be a powerful queen, every move she makes is because of Oberon’s orders.
She is so manipulated that she is not able to keep the changeling boy by her side, which seemed to be her personal gain at the beginning of the play. She continues having the power over her fairies through the whole play, but she even manipulates them to fulfil Oberon’s desires, as it happens in the final scene, when they go together with their trains to bless Theseus’s house (V, I: 385-388).
Thus, what Titania obtains at the end of the play is less than she had at the beginning: she just has her fairies and Oberon’s power over her, hidden by their renewed kind relationship.
Nohemi
Puck
or Robin Goodfellow in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”
If we talk about manipulation and the character of Puck, we must differentiate between when Puck himself manipulates others and when he is being manipulated by others (basically by Oberon). To do this we should first place Puck within the play, or rather within the social setting of the play. Shakespeare provides us with two different types of society in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”: the real world (the urban world) and the fairy one (the wood). Puck, despite being a hobgoblin and belonging to the fairy community can also interact with the mortals. This is the reason why he will play an important role in the development of actions taking place in both worlds. He will influence the mortals’ lives and will be influenced, as mentioned above, by Oberon.
On the one hand we have the master-servant relationship between Oberon, King of Fairies, and Puck, where the latter is subordinated to the former. Oberon will make use of Robin Goodfellow in order to carry out his will and to perform his little puppet show. He guides and directs Puck’s actions: “Fetch me that flower” (Act II, scene I, line 30, p. 37), “Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove (…) anoint his eyes” (Act II, scene I, line 28-30, p. 40), “Hie therefore Robin, overcast the night” (Act III, scene ii, line 31, p. 64). This leads us to the conclusion that the main and only character to manipulate Puck throughout the play is his master Oberon. On the other hand we find that Puck manipulates the “fool mortals” and, despite the fact that he is under Oberon’s command, it does not prevent him from enjoying running his master’s errands. He makes a couple of mistakes that result in an even messier situation, which he actually takes delight in: “And those things do best please me, that befall preposterously” (Act III, scene ii, line 33-34, p. 56), “And so far am I glad, it so did sort, as this their (mortals’) jangling I esteem a sport” (Act III, scene ii, line 28-29, p. 64). It is worth noting that although Oberon is the one who orders and leads him, it is Puck who acts and the one under control (he manipulates the love flower throughout the play). In the same way he is mastered by Oberon, he will guide the mortals in some situations: “I’ll lead you about a round” (Act III, scene I, line 26, p. 49), “When I did him at this advantage take, an ass’s nole I fixed on his head” (Act III, scene ii, line 20-21, p. 53), “I led them on in this distracted fear, and left sweet Pyramus translated there” (Act III, scene ii, line 3-4, p. 54), “Up and down, up and down, I will lead them up and down” (Act III, scene ii, line 7-8, p. 66). Sometime Puck does not limit himself to Oberon’s command but performs his errands adding his personal touch, as it happens in the scene where Puck “translates” Bottom.
So far I have discussed the social role Puck plays and which characters he is closer to. We may now look in depth at the profit he takes from manipulating other characters. As already mentioned above, Robin Goodfellow performs mischievous acts for the sake of his own entertainment. Nevertheless, some people believe him to be a malevolent sprite, a devil (let us not forget that Puck was a typical name for the devil in medieval times) whose misdeeds are deliberate and malicious. On the contrary, I think this Puck Shakespeare presents us here moves away from the medieval stereotype that Elisabethans were familiar with. Shakespeare adds some honesty and kindness to the character that were not present before: “As I am an honest Puck” (Act V, scene i, line 9, p. 91). Although he enjoys his pranks and the love mix-ups he creates he also feels, in a way, sorry for the “poor mortals”: “Cupid is a knavish lad, thus to make poor females mad” (Act III, scene ii, line 33, p. 67). Puck takes pity on them, which reveals a kind nature that may be added to his mischievous personality.
Finally let us take a look at the result of this messy situation. The final product we get after all the pranks and mischievous acts Puck carries out, along with his manipulation of the characters and the story line, is that “all is mended” (Act V, scene i, line 2, p. 91). Robin Goodfellow ends up undoing the fix. We can conclude then that he is not that selfish or wicked after all, though we always have to bear in mind the fact that it is Robin Goodfellow who mixes up the situation. He even wants to become reconciled with the audience in the epilogue: “Give me your hands, if we be friends, and Robin shall restore amends” (Act V, scene I, line 15-16, p. 91).
To sum up, Puck can be seen as the great manipulator of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, however he does not control other characters dishonestly or unfairly but performs his task for sheer fun.
Karl Wishart
The character of Bottom in “A
Midsummer Night’s Dream” is one who attempts to be a manipulator among those of
his social class and ends up being manipulated in the fairy kingdom.
As regards the effects of social
influence concerning the issue of manipulation of his character, we have to be aware that
Bottom inhabits two different societies. While in the world of his fellow
humans, Bottom is of low social rank. However he aspires to rise to the top of
the social subgroup that is the mechanicals and does this via an attempt at
manipulation when it comes to handing out the roles of the play that he and his
friends are to perform. If Bottom is successful in his actions he will be
rewarded with personal gain; he will now be the one that the mechanicals now
take their orders from.
Purely through seniority of age we see how
Peter Quince assumes control over his fellow group of actors by designating
their roles in the performance of Pyramus and Thisbe. Bottom however will not accept this. He suggests a
variety of roles that he should play after being instructed to take on the role
of Pyramus. Bottom is not only trying to show off his
artistic repertoire by offering himself up for other roles, but he is also
trying to assert himself within the group, and attempting to manipulate affairs
so that he gets his way. Ultimately though he fails due to Quince’s insistence
that no other man amongst the mechanicals has the physical characteristics
required to play the role of Pyramus. Therefore
despite his attempts to rise to the head of the group, there is no reward for
Bottom.
In contrast we see how Bottom
becomes manipulated by Puck and finds himself as the object of Titania’s
affections in the fairy kingdom. Bottom is blissfully unaware of his physical
transformation and how he is being used by Puck, and therefore, Oberon, to gain
revenge upon Titania. Oberon cursing her to fall in
love with the first creature that she sets eyes upon when she awakens. After
dropping the magic juice in her eyes “The next thing then she (Titania) waking looks upon…She shall pursue it with the
soul of love” (2:1, 179-82). That “next thing” is to be the manipulated Bottom
due to an encounter between Bottom and Titania that
Puck fabricates.
However, despite being manipulated it is
interesting to compare Bottom’s social ranking in the fairy kingdom with his
position in the real world. In the human world Bottom is of low social rank (he
is a weaver), but in the world of the fairies he is treated as a god due to
Titania’s love for him. It is in this land of fairies that Bottom finally gets
to wield the power that is unobtainable to him outside the confines of the
forest. Bottom thoroughly enjoys the power that he has over Peasebottom,
Cobweb and Mustardseed. In this world, albeit under
false pretences, Bottom gets a huge amount of personal gain that is not
available to him in the ’real’ world.
Of course, this new status is only
temporary, and when Titania’s curse is lifted upon Oberon’s receiving of the
changeling, Bottom is quickly abandoned. The manipulation of Bottom by Puck and
Oberon has been a complete success; the Indian boy is now Oberon’s possession.
Bottom himself considers that what
has happened to him has all been a dream, but it is possible that on a small
level he too has gained from the experience. He enjoyed his moment of power in
the fairy kingdom and now that he has returned to his normal life he feels that
his ’dream’ could serve to be made into ballad which he will get Peter Quince
to write and that he himself will sing.
To conclude with the issue of
manipulation with regards to the character of Bottom, the most interesting
thing to note is that Bottom was a lot more happy and successful while being at
the mercy of Puck manipulating him, than he was in his own unsuccessful
attempts to manipulate things back in his own world.
Cristal
In the play, The Comedy of Errors, Shakespeare manipulates time, space and
people in order to create a farcical comedy that leaves the audience laughing
and the characters confused. The characters themselves do not manipulate each
other because Shakespeare does not write them with profound personalities. That
is to say that the characters are not developed as are those of The Taming of the Shrew and A Midsummer Night’s Dream and such flat
characters are unable to have real motivation for manipulation. The one aspect that Shakespeare does
add to the characters to make their actions more comical is contrasting
personalities. Both sets of twin brothers have contrasting personalities which
makes their odd actions even more hilarious when their identities are mistaken
( Tillyard, 62).
In addition, the farcical events are unknown to the characters and they are
therefore less able to control the outcome of any situation by manipulating
another character. The real manipulation is done to the audience because
Shakespeare plays on their sense of reason and reactions in order to help them
relate to the reality of the story and laugh at the farcical unreality.
The manipulation of reality is the only aspect that all three plays have in common because it causes a confusion that affects the perceptions of those involved. This kind of confusion can be related to The Taming of the Shrew because Petruccio tries to manipulate Kate through convincing her of an untrue reality instead of just telling her that she must do as he says. She is convinced to believe an unreality because of his physical and emotional manipulations to her. He does not let her eat, but does it in a way masked with love and finally, his treatment alters her perception of reality. This is also done in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but it is done to Titania by Oberon through magic. His spell causes such confusion that she is not sure if the love she felt for Bottom was a dream or if it really happened.
The timing in comedy is important in order for the audience to get the full effect of humor. Allowing one of the twins to arrive at the same place at the same time while the other twin was expected there causes the confusion that can only be created by timing. For example, the gold chain was given to Antipholus of Syracuse but Antipholus of Ephesus was expected to pay for it. Neither of these characters manipulated each other in order to obtain the gold chain. They were merely victims of Shakespeare’s circumstance and timing. Causing their confusion allows the manipulation of their characters, but does not allow the characters to manipulate one another because the confusion, to this point, remains unknown to them.
Shakespeare’s manipulation of the character’s appearance, that is to say using two sets of twins for a comical effect of confusion relates to the confusion found in A Midsummer Night’s Dream when Puck does Oberon’s bidding and affects the wrong characters causing a sort of mistaken identity. Oberon also manipulates the fog, causing the characters to get lost and this confusion is what finally fixes the farcical events and, does not restore the order, but creates a sort of new order.
The Comedy of Errors is one of Shakespeare’s earlier plays and its characters do not reach the profound level of complexity that the characters of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Taming of the Shrew because the real manipulation is a kind of omniscient power of the reality of all characters in the play. This allows flat characters to still be interesting because it is circumstance alone that is comical.
The only sort of manipulation actually done by one character to another in The Comedy of Errors can be found in the institution of marriage because its expectations directly affect the characters´ behavior.
The Comedy of Errors: Tactics of manipulation Erika
In the Comedy
of Errors, social conventions such as marriage used to put women in an
inferior role. Marriage helps men to obtain not only status but also to
dominate women. On one hand, Antipholus of Ephesus tries to tame his wild wife,
Adriana. On the other hand, Luciana pretends to behave according society
conventions and contrasts her sister. The
Comedy of Errors is one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays where most
characters are flatted more than rounded. Adriana and Luciana are vivid
examples of the women’s conception during Elizabethan’s times. Men’s
manipulation concerning marriage identity slightly appears in Errors but emphasises with a more
complex character development in The
Taming of the Shrew. The closest affinities, for action and characters, lie
between Errors and The Taming of the Shrew. Both plays
devise absurd settings for the expression of Pauline principles requiring a
wife to subjugate herself to her husband – principles expressed in Errors by Luciana and (less directly) by
the Abbess, and in The Shrew by Katherina in her final speech.
Concerning moral conventions Dorsch
explains that St Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians supplied material of a moral
nature to the play, for example, St Paul’s admonition beginning, ‘Wiues, submit your selues unto
your owne husbands, as unto the Lord’, is directly
echoed by Luciana (at 2.1.6-24, for example), and less directly by the Abbess
(5.1.68-86): ‘A man is master of his liberty’; all creatures ‘Are their males’
subjects, and their controls’; men ‘Are masters to their females, and their
lords’; in all his pursuits ‘To be disturbed, would mad or man or beast.’ (cf. Dorsch 1998: 11-12)
Furthermore, the women of the play stand out more
vividly than the men. Adriana is temperamental; she nags her husband to the
last, even complaining of him to the Abbess, but wails at great length when in
exasperation he sometimes goes off to find congenial company elsewhere-after
all, she keeps a good house and is herself faithful. She needs to be taught a
lesson or two by her more even-tempered sister. In her worse moments she thinks
Antipholus E. to be:
deformed, crooked, old, and sere;
ill-faced, worse-bodied, shapeless everywhere;
vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind,
stigmatical
in making, worse in mind. (4.2.19-22)
When she thinks he is going to be put in jail or a
madhouse, she rushes to his help and calls him ‘gentle husband’. Naughty as he
is, she loves him dearly, as indeed she has from the beginning, if too
possessively; even her sharpest railings have come from her mouth, not her
heart, as she has shown in her dialogue with Luciana at the end of 2.1, and, in
so many words, in 4.2.18,28. She will, when she has shown her faults, behave
better in the future. Here, Katherina, in my opinion,
differs entirely as she is more oppressed than in love with her husband.
However, Dorsch presents Luciana and says:
“She is somewhat given to preaching (as the Abbess,
but then that is her vocation) and at the same time a very agreeable and
pleasantly-spoken young woman. She is of course disconcerted when Antipholus
woos her so fervently, thinks that perhaps he is mad, but after her first
sermon does little to stop him and can scarcely be said to chide (reproach) him
as she chides Adriana. She is as anxious about her brother-in-law’s welfare as
her sister, and would be incapable of insulting him, as Adriana does. She is
good company, ‘of excellent discourse, pretty and witty; wild, and yet, too,
gentle’ (gentle in both the modern sense and in the usual Elizabethan sense of
‘well-bred’, though Antipholus of Syracuse thinks otherwise). Her wildness is
not seen, and there is no vice in her. Shakespeare chose to celebrate the loves
and marriages of nice young women rather than fornication.” (cf. Dorsch 1998:
16-18)
Nevertheless, Maguirre
thinks that Adriana struggles to bring together her sexual and spiritual roles
in marriage. Adriana’s dilemma derives in part from a duality in Renaissance
attitudes to women. Viewed as both divine and dangerous, women and their beauty
could lead men to an appreciation of higher things (the spiritually beautiful, the
celestial) or the physical temptation (lust, gratification, damnation). Both
extremes of these female stereotypes are represented in Errors. The love-stricken Antipholus of Syracuse employs the
vocabulary of worship in wooing Luciana: she is ‘divine,’ ‘a god’ (3.2.32, 39).
In the next scene, his servant, Dromio of Syracuse,
uses the language of demonology to describe his pursuit by the sexually forward
maidservant, Luce: Luce ‘haunts’ him (3.2.82), she is a ‘diviner’ (witch), she
knows ‘what privy marks’ he has, so that he ‘amaz’d,
run from her as a witch’ (3.2.140-4). The common root of these two women’s
names (Luce and Luciana) shows that the demonic female (the ‘diviner’ who would
possess the male) and the divine female (the goddess whom the male wishes to
possess) are but two sides of the same female stereotype. (cf. Maguire 2004:
72-73)
In addition, Adriana attempts to unite both
extremes, attending to her husband’s body and soul: she offers private dinner
(a euphemism for sex) and confession (‘Husband, I’ll dine above with you
to-day, / And shrive you of a thousand idle pranks’; 2.2.207-8). Adriana sees
her identity as a wife as a fusion of two opposing female stereotypes. Interesting, Maguire explains the following:
“Shakespeare departed from Plautu’s
setting of Epidammum, situating his action in
At the beginning of the play Adriana is clearly
equated with the Amazon Ephesian, Luciana with the
Christian. Adriana provoke at the restrictions marriage imposes on women (‘Why
should their liberty than ours be more?’; (2.1.10). Luciana knows Paul’s lesson
by heart:
There is nothing situate under heaven’s eye
But hath his bound in earth, in sea, in sky.
The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls
Are their males’ subjects and at their controls:
Man, more divine, the master of all these,
Lord of the wide world and wild wat’ry
seas,
Indud’d
with intellectual sense and souls,
Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls,
Are masters to their females, and their lords.
(2.1.16-24)
Adriana, following Maguire, can hardly be an
independent woman since, as a wife, she has legally promised submission, while
Luciana, who preaches submission, can do so only because (as Adriana points
out) she is independent (2.1.38-41). The identities of Adriana and Luciana,
like those of the twins, begin to merge, become confused. Despite her
rhetorical question: ‘Why should their liberty than ours be more?’ (2.1.10),
Adriana seems to want not liberty but the right to love and be loved as a wife.
When next we meet the women it is Adriana who has the long Pauline speech on
marriage as she lyrically, passionately tells Antipholus that husband and wife
are ‘undividable incorporate’ (2.2.122). (cf. Maguire 2004: 73)
Finally, Luciana’s subsequent speech on marriage is
strangely non spiritual, full of knowing advice to her (supposed) brother-in-law
about how to conduct an extramarital affair: ’Look sweet, speak fair, become
disloyalty; / Apparel vice like virtue’s harbinger; / Bear a fair presence,
though your heart be tainted; / Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint: / Be
secret-false’ (3.2.11-15). Throughout Errors
we see Adriana and Luciana trying to work out which type of Ephesian
woman (addressing indirectly to Elizabethan’s times) to be (pagan or Christian,
independent or submissive), and experimenting with whether it is possible to be
both. Maguire questions if women can be both: divine (the spiritual goddess)
and a ‘diviner’ (a sexual bewitcher). I believe that in The Taming of the Shrew these women’s identities are more developed
in the Minola’s sisters.
Patricia BIBLIOGRAPHY
·
Saccio, Peter. Kate Plays the Game. http://www.amrep.org/past/shrew1/html
·
Alchin,
Linda K. Elizabethan Era.
http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/elizabethan-women.htm
·
http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=16685
Silvia BIBLIOGRAPHY
·
Gardner, Patrick and Phillips,
Brian. Sparknote on The Taming of the Shrew. “Character Analysis” and “Theme: The
Effect of Social Roles on Individual Happiness”. (20 march 2007)
http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/shrew/canalysis.html
http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/shrew/themes.html
·
Saccio, Peter. Kate Plays the Game. http://www.amrep.org/past/shrew1/html
·
Alchin,
Linda K. Elizabethan Era.
http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/elizabethan-women.htm
Caterina BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://www.online-literature.com/shakespeare/midsummer
http://www.enote.com/midsummer/36249
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Midsummer_Night’s_dream
http://www.liberliber.it/biblioteca/s/shakespeare/index.htm
Nohemí BIBLIOGRAPHY
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, William Shakespeare. Penguin Popular Classics. 1994.
Shakespeare, William. The
Tillyard, E.M.W. Shakespeare´s Early Comedies.
Erika
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary
Shakespeare,
William. The Complete Works of William
Shakespeare.
Secondary
Dorsch,
S. T. The New
Maguire, E. Laurie. Studying
Shakespeare: a guide to the plays.