VIOLENCE IN KATE AS A CRY FOR HELP

 

 

 

 

The character I have decided to analyze is Kate from The Taming of the Shrew. Kate is one of Baptista’s daughters. Unlike her apparently sweet-tempered sister Bianca, Kate is known for her nasty and violent behaviour. At the beginning of the play we find that Bianca cannot get married until Kate has a husband. The beginning of the play also shows that the two sisters don’t get on well at all. In fact, we see Kate abusing physically of Bianca and tying her up. With all this information, we should think that violence seems to be something inherent in Kate’s personality.

 

 I would like to focus on that violence: what (or who) provokes it and what does it mean. Also, I would like to point out that the “change” we see in Katharina is not only the result of a taming process but also the proof that beneath all that harshness there was always a nice girl. I strongly think that Kate’s behaviour is for the most part a mechanism of defence. All her life, she had had to bear with being dismissed by her father so her behaviour was a form of self-protection. Had she been a weaker person she may have submitted to her father’s wishes but she isn’t and the way that she has to put up with this is to rebel against everything, particularly against the cause of her misfortune: Bianca.

 

That is why we have to take into account her family background if we want to analyze Kate in a deeper way. It’s obvious that hers isn’t a healthy home environment:

“Kate comes from a one-parent family where her younger sister is her father's favourite. A motherless daughter with a younger sister who is singled out for her father's love will very early on devise strategies for reclaiming her share and will perceive her younger sister as enemy and rival. Two of the ways in which a deprived child may vent its feelings are either by conspicuously flouting the authority of the father (in an effort to capture his attention as much as anything else) or in acts of aggression against the sibling rival. The opening scenes of the play show that Katherina has opted for a combination of the two. Baptista appears on stage in the company of his two daughters and a gaggle of men clamouring for Bianca's hand in marriage. His attempt to act as a responsible parent by refusing suitors for the younger until he has found a husband for the elder is undermined first of all by his own display of exasperation at the persistence of Kate's unmarried state. Secondly, he has placed her in the humiliating position of having this drawn to the attention of a gathering composed entirely of men who are suitors for her sister Bianca's hand, not hers. This humiliation has to be renegotiated later on in the play in the context of her relations with Petruchio.”

(Taunton, Nina)

 

            Katherina is not a happy person and many people connect her violent

behaviour with the jealousy that she feels towards her sister:

 

 “Though most of the play’s characters simply believe Katherine to be inherently ill-tempered, it is certainly plausible to think that her unpleasant behavior stems from unhappiness. She may act like a shrew because she is miserable and desperate. There are many possible sources of Katherine’s unhappiness: she expresses jealousy about her father’s treatment of her sister.”  

(SparkNotes)

 

Although this is one of the main causes, it is not the only one. She is aware of her situation as a woman: she must find a husband if she wants to ensure her future but at the same time, she hates those social conventions. Besides, we shouldn’t forget that she was a very intelligent woman who needed to belong to somewhere. She wouldn’t be satisfied with any one even if it would mean to make a “good marriage”. She needed her equal.

 

“…her anxiety may also stem from feelings about her own undesirability, the fear that she may never win a husband, her loathing of the way men treat her, and so on. In short, Katherine feels out of place in her society. Due to her intelligence and independence, she is unwilling to play the role of the maiden daughter. She clearly abhors society’s expectations that she obey her father and show grace and courtesy toward her suitors. At the same time, however, Katherine must see that given the rigidity of her social situation, her only hope to find a secure and happy place in the  world lies in finding a husband. These inherently conflicting impulses may lead to her misery and poor temper. A vicious circle ensues: the angrier she becomes, the less likely it seems she will be able to adapt to her prescribed social role; the more alienated she becomes socially, the more her anger grows.”

(SparkNotes)

 

Having to do with Bianca, Shakespeare introduces her as the ideal sixteenth century woman (sweet, generous and tame) but since the beginning her behaviour towards her sister gives us a glimpse of her real personality:

 

“Bianca acts outwardly sweet or indifferent towards Kate, affecting a long-suffering air in the presence of her father. However, when you observe Kate and Bianca together, it seems as though Bianca’s comments, although on the outside innocent, are calculated to spite Katherina. Kate, although having tied Bianca up, never really seems to gain the upper hand.

Katherina’s sister Bianca appears to be the epitome of a perfect woman; she is meek, docile, modest and never outspoken. When talking to her father, she does what he asks, she never speaks out of turn and she presents the world with an image of chastity and virtue. How much of this is calculated to gain her sister’s envy? Would Kate really be so shrewish if Bianca wasn’t her sister?”

(Franproc: Review on The Taming of the Shrew)

 

As we can see, what annoys Kate the most is not just the fact that Bianca is surrounded by suitors who adore her or even that their father prefers her but the extremely manipulative and selfish behaviour of Bianca’s.

 

As we approach the end of the play we see the true nature of the two sisters. Bianca, once married, reveals to be an obnoxious and bad-tempered woman who refuses to obey Lucentio. Kate, on the other hand, wasn’t a shrew at all. Her violence was a way to draw attention to herself, as the title of the paper says: a cry for help. She must have been fed up with her sister’s hypocrisy and violence was the only way to react that she had. So Kate’s change wasn’t that much of a change. The nice girl was always there, underneath that harsh façade:

 

“Although even her father calls her a shrew, Katherine has a deeper
character than the epithet would imply.  From the beginning we see that she
is continually placed second in her father's affections, and despised by
all others.  Bianca on the other hand, is identified as the favorite,
playing the long-suffering angel, increasing Baptisa's distinction between
the two.  As Katherine recognizes her sister's strategy, her reaction is as
one can imagine how another would react suffering this type of bias for so
many years.  She is hurt and she seeks revenge.  This is seen in Act II,
Scene I, when Katherine sums up her own state: "I will go sit and weep/
Till I can find occasion of revenge" (35-36).  It is an immature response,
but the only one she knows, and it serves the dual purpose of cloaking her
hurt.  The transformation, which she undergoes near the end of the play, is
not one of character, but one of attitude.  At the end of the play, we find
out that her negative attitude becomes a positive one.”  

(123helpme)

 

Even if I don’t like the idea of women as damsels in distress who need to be saved by men, Kate needs desperately to escape from that environment and at that time there wasn’t much of an alternative: women were treated as property. First, they belonged to the father, and then when they got married, to the husband. Petrucchio, although first interested in Kate because of her father’s money, offers her the opportunity to escape and serves as a catalyst of her “change” (López Castellón). He is shown as her equal, both in intelligence and wit and by the time we finish reading the play we are truly convinced that they are two of a kind.

 

 As we have seen, appearances are very important in this play because not only the roles of Bianca and Kate turn upside down but also the main couples aren’t what they seemed at the beginning:

 

“Bianca and Lucentio, for instance, when we first meet them, appear to be a perfect match. From the moment he sets eyes on her Lucentio is smitten by the seemingly flawless Bianca, and soon the feeling is mutual (…) everything seems rosy. However, when the men place the bet on the obedience of their wives, Bianca reveals a new, previously unseen – at least by Lucentio – side to her character and makes a fool of him.”

 (123helpme)

 

However:

 

“When Katherina and Petrucio get married, it is not for love. Petrucio is marrying for money, and Katherina has no choice – the role of women was not to question their father’s judgement in choosing their husband, and even if, like Kate, they did, their views would be ignored. But when they banter with words during their first meeting, you get the feeling that they are both somewhat enjoying it. They are both equally quick-witted and volatile and seemingly well matched (…) neither of them pretended to be anything that they weren’t, and so when they finally fell in love it was as a result of really getting to know each other’s true nature. In finding out a little more about

themselves, they found each other, and in the end they became the perfect couple.”

(123helpme)

 

Finally, I would like to focus on Kate’s final monologue as a way of revenge towards her sister. She finally gets her chance to put her down showing everyone that Bianca who was once seen as the perfect little wife is not that wonderful:

 

“All eyes are on Petruchio when he calls his wife. He commands her presence (as opposed to Lucentio’s bidding (79) and Hortensio’s entreating (90)), and much to everyone’s surprise she appears. At this point, the crowd is flabbergasted, and their surprise provides Kate and Petruchio just the opportunity to get the best of all of them. Kate is aware Petruchio is not only staking his reputation on her, but he is giving her the opportunity to have power over all others present. By asking Kate to go get the other women, Petruchio gives her an opportunity to lord over the others. Later, in getting her to stomp on her hat, the couple works together to give the illusion of Petruchio having control, while in reality, they share power together and reap the mutual rewards.”

(Education.yahoo)

 

            Having a happy ending, the audience might expect reconciliation between the two sisters. In fact, some screen adaptations have tried to do so (one example is the 1999 version “10 things I hate about you”) but that doesn’t happen here. What Kate wants the most is to humiliate her sister and her final monologue is aimed at that.

In conclusion, there is no point in denying that Kate has, indeed, a bad temper and a strong personality but her violence derived mostly from things that did not work in her life: On one hand, she was unfairly perceived as the black sheep of the family, always overshadowed by her sister. On the other, she had the feeling that she wouldn’t be able to break away from there because no one wanted to marry her due to her behaviour. But then, Petrucchio came along, challenged her and got the best of her. Let’s admit it: the “shrew” wouldn’t have allowed to be “tamed” if she wouldn’t had liked Petrucchio at least a little bit.

 

 

 

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

 

 

 

        <http://webdoc.gwdg.de/edoc/ia/eese/artic96/taunton/8_96.htmles> 

         (21 March 2007)

 

        <http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/shrew/canalysis.html> 

        (20 March 2007)

 

        <http://www.ciao.co.uk/The_Taming_of_the_Shrew_William_Shakespeare__Review_5342214> 

        (21 March 2007)

 

        <http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=16685> 

        (22 March 2007)

 

        <http://education.yahoo.com> Path: homework help; cliffnotes; the taming of the shrew (22 March 2007)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Academic year 2006/2007

© a.r.e.a. / Dr.Vicente Forés López

© Patricia Sebastián Hernández
Universitat de València Press

paseher@alumni.uv.es