Curs monografic de literatura
anglesa
Caterina Del Canto
Grupo A
THE
TAMING OF THE SHREW
Can
Katherina the Shrew be happy?
Katherina Minola is one of the comedy’ s main character. She is the
eldest daughter of Baptista Minola, a
rich gentleman of
Kate insists upon saying whatever she feels using abusive and angry
words and acting in a violent way. She constantly insults and degrades the men
around her. She thinks that the only way to maintain her integrity is to oppose
to what other people say and it’s plausible to think that her dreadful
behaviour comes from unhappiness; one of
the central reason of this feeling could be the jealousy about her father’s
treatment with her sister named Bianca, who is (in contrast to Katherina) the
sweet and submissive daughter and just because of her beauty and desiderable
qualities is the father’s favourite.
Consequently the relationship between the two sisters is troubled and
Katharine’s behaviour doesn’t help to make it better, as happened for example
in the beginning of act II scene I, when
Bianca tries to convince Katherina to
get married with one of Bianca’s suitor and Katherina the Shrew insults
her and beats her up; she is unwilling to play the role of the maiden daughter, she is intelligent
and independent. In this scene it is also evident that Baptista doesn’t
treat Kate as well as he treats Bianca:
he calls Bianca “ poor girl” and
Katherina “hilding of a devilish spirit” and so, as a result of this lack of esteem,
Katherina gets angrier than before and says: “What, will you not suffer me?
Nay, now I see/She is your treasure, she must have a husband/I must
dance barefoot on her wedding-day/And for your love to her lead apes in
hell./Talk not to me, I will go sit and weep,/Till I can find occasion of
revenge” (act II scene I).
Her anxiety may also stem from feeling about her own undesirability, the
fear she may never win a husband, her
loathing of the way men treat her: Katharine feels out of place in her society.
Katherina’s behaviour, which she assumes up to the beginning of the
taming, consents her preserve her
integrity but not to be happy.
In fact she is independent but her attitude makes her unappreciated by
all the people who surround her; so, at this point of her life, she has to find
the way to feel better and to live in peace in her society which wants women to
be diligent and submitted.
Kate has to admit that her only hope to find safety (considering her
social situation as a woman) is finding a husband, so it creates a vicious
circle: the more angry she becomes, less it seems she will be able to change
and adapt to her prescribed social role, and the more alienated she becomes
socially, the more her anger grows.
It seemed indeed impossible that any gentleman would ever been found who
would try to marry this lady, and Baptista decreed that she had to wed a man
before her younger sister Bianca, so only in that moment also Bianca would be able to marry.
This happened when a gentleman named Petruchio came to Padua, purposely
to look out for a wife (possibly a very
rich one); he, not discouraged by the reports of Katharine’ s bad temper and
hearing she is rich and handsome, resolved upon marrying this famous shrew and
taming her into a manageable wife.
The first meeting between Petruchio
and Katherina, it is the first time in her life a man speaks kindly to her and
they have a strange courtship. She fights him every word, showing him how
justly she had gained the name of Shrew (perhaps
her fury is simply the result of having no way of expressing her acute
intelligence), while he still praised her sweet and courteous words; the two
are clearly a match for each other and hearing her father coming, Petruchio
said (intending to make a courting as quick as possible): ”Sweet Katharine, let
us set this idle chat aside, for your father has consented that you shall be my wife, your dowry is agreed
on, and whether you will or no, I will marry you” (act 2 scene 1 ) .
Here Petruchio has still not tamed Katherina, the taming of Katherina
starts at the wedding when Petruchio humiliates Kate by arriving late, and
later by behaving even worse than she does: he didn’ t let her eat neither
sleep and Katherina reacts without thinking to the first part of the taming.
She‘s preoccupied with her own physical distress and frustration. In a
subsequent scene, she bends under pressure. Perhaps she is just exhausted,
starved for sleep and food, denied new clothes or maybe she has come to see
Petruchio’s actions as a game, one she can enjoy.
Another day Katherina was forced to practice her newly found obedience: she had
to insinuate it was the sun, when he affirmed the moon shone brightly at noonday,
so that Katherina, no longer was Katherina
the Shrew, but the obedient wife said he
could call it sun, moon, rush candle just as he wished, and it would be so for
her. The taming has worked. She is obedient and compliant.
The story ends at a wedding feast for Petruchio, Lucentio, and Hortensio
and their new wives, Katherina, Bianca, and the Widow. Petruchio proposes a
gamble that the other two men accept. The husband whose wife comes immediately
when summoned will win the pot. Bianca and the Widow refuse to come; Katherina
performs her husband’s command without reply and arrives at once. Petruchio
asks her also to tell her sister Bianca and the Widow how a wife has to behave with her husband and
she does it, proud of her own.
Petruchio produces Katherina’ s
pain and her pleasure, because the satisfactions she expresses in her closing speech suggest the success of
Petruchio’s brutal exercise of power; the fact that she has succumbed to and
been changed by her husband’s physical and psychological mistreatment of her.
Katherina’s final speech is a very unpalatable one to modern sentiments and
contains the most submissive words she speaks in the play; it is not clear, in
this closing speech, whether Katherina is confessing her discovery of the “naturalness”
of patriarchy or a acknowledging its sheer coercive power.
The taming may be convenient to Katherina on some level, even if she
doesn’t like the role of wife, playing it at least means she can control respect
and consideration from others rather than suffer the universal revulsion she
receives as a shrew. Having a social role, even if it is not ideal, must be
less painful than continually rejecting
any social role at all. The fact that Katherina seems to be a party to
Petruccio’s demand is not so strange if we consider that by the end of the play,
she has gained a position and even an authoritative voice that she previously
had been denied. Perhaps her initial independence is a virtue.
The character of Katherina, who apparently lost her attitude, and her
total defeat in the “fight” with her
husband, could be subject of much criticism. In particular, feminists have
attacked the play - first of all the final scene - as offensively misogynistic.
However this play lends itself to
a variety of interpretations: we don’t
really know if the Katherina’s acquiescence is real or if she has learned to
play the obedient wife in public so as
to get her own way in private.
Maybe it could reflect the submission of spirited and intelligent woman forced
to give in to a society that dominates and controls women and allows them only very
limited self-expression; but it doesn’t
really matter because, in the end, she has found what she was searching for:
peacefulness through a husband who she
loves. Maybe she has lost her
independence but she can be happy because she can feel at ease in her new role
of wife.
In conclusion, through this comedy, Shakespeare shows his personal
critical sense for women’s role in society of his time and analysis women’s
psychology with great ability.
He opposes to combine weddings based only on economical interests and
family’ prestige. Through Katherina’s character he exposes in a very ironical
way the inner conflicts of a taming wife. In the meantime Kate shows feminine
intelligence, courage and persistence that help her in the hard relationship
with Petruccio.
The contrast between Katherina – straight, but sincere – and Bianca -
well-educated, but false - warns the
public about false appearances and teaches that not always the taming wife is
able to truly love. In fact Bianca says and does always something that doesn’t
pertain to what she feels.
It’s necessary also to remember that Baptista, the merchant father, is
willing to sell out his daughter to the better suitor, as if they were simple
goods; we may think that Shakespeare puts himself in daughters’ shoes, who try
to contrast their situation.
There’s no doubt, however, that the point of view of the comedy is the
masculine and Elizabethan one, that suffers of the oppression which is
submitted the Shrew.
BIBLIOGRAPHY