Essay On Taming Of The Shrew

In Shakespeare 's Taming of the Shrew, the whole play centers around Petruchio trying to “tame” Katherine and forcing her to be the traditional submissive wife. Set in the Elizabethan era, the play also compares love versus economic value and how social status influences marriage in the 16th century.

Bianca, quiet and innocent, plays the traditional role of a woman well, while Katherine rebels and refuses to be ordered around by any man. While both men and women in the play don 't always line up with traditional gender roles, it is the women (Katherine, specifically) are punished. In today 's society, Kate could be seen as an independent woman who doesn’t need a man but instead, Kate is depicted as a crusted, unmanageable shrew in which by the looks of it, will die alone if she doesn 't curb her attitude. She isn’t seen as marriage material until Petruchio comes around.

Petruchio states, “I will be master of what is mine own. She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house, My household stuff, my field, my barn, My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything.” In this era, these statements illustrate the clear, consensus reality of what power looks like in a relationship. Petruchio and Kate seem to have a marriage passion filled and driven with the desire for power. But, unlike the other couples in the

In the beginning, Hortensio drops a hint to Bianca’s shallow nature when he professes “kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, / shall win [his] love”. When Lucentio bids Bianca to come see him, she replies that she is busy and will not come. She is grouped with Hortensio’s widow when she is called ‘headstrong’ by Petruchio. Bianca’s bad attitude is presented in a more subdued feminine way; with passive-aggressive and backhanded comments. Kate is outed as a shrew because she is more masculine in her bitchiness; throwing things and insulting the other