The taming of the shrew character profile Essays

The taming of the shrew character profile Essays The taming of the shrew character profile Paper The taming of the shrew character profile Paper Essay Topic: The Taming Of the Shrew Widely reputed throughout Padua to be a shrew, Katherine is foul-tempered and sharp-tongued at the start of the play. She constantly insults and degrades the men around her, and she is prone to wild displays of anger, during which she may physically attack whomever enrages her. Though most of the play 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 Katherineà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½s unhappiness: she expresses jealousy about her fathers treatment of her sister, but 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 societys 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. Despite the humiliations and deprivations that Petruccio adds to her life, it is easy to understand why Katherine might succumb to marry a man like him. In their first conversation, Petruccio establishes that he is Katherines intellectual and verbal equal, making him, on some level, an exciting change from the easily dominated men who normally surround her. Petruccios forcible treatment of Katherine is in every way designed to show her that she has no real choice but to adapt to her social role as a wife. This adaptation must be attractive to Katherine on some level, since even if she dislikes the role of wife, playing it at least means she can command 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. Thus, Katherines eventual compliance with Petruccis self-serving straining appears more rational than it might have seemed at first: by the end of the play, she has gained a position and even an authoritative voice that she previously had been denied. Petruchio Petruccio is a gentleman from Verona. Loud, boisterous, eccentric, quick-witted, and frequently drunk, he has come to Padua à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½to wive and thrive.à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ He wishes for nothing more than a woman with an enormous dowry, and he finds Kate to be the perfect fit. Disregarding everyone who warns him of her shrewishness, he eventually succeeds not only in wooing Katherine, but in silencing her tongue and temper with his own. The boastful, selfish, mercurial Petruccio is one of the most difficult characters in The Taming of the Shrew: his behavior is extremely difficult to decipher, and our interpretation of the play as a whole changes dramatically depending on how we interpret Petruccis actions. If he is nothing more than a vain, uncaring, greedy chauvinist who treats marriage as an act of domination, then the play becomes a dark comedy about the materialism and hunger for power that dictate marriages under the guise of courtly love. If, on the other hand, Petruccio is actually capable of loving Kate and conceives of taming her merely as a means to realize a happy marriage, then the play becomes an examination of the psychology of relationships. A case can be made for either interpretation, but the truth about Petruccio probably lies somewhere in between: he is unabashedly selfish, materialistic, and determined to be his wifes lord and master, but he also loves her and realizes on some level that domestic harmony (on his terms, of course) would be better for her than her current life as a shrew in Padua. To this extent, Petruccio goes to alarming lengths to impose his mastery on Kate, keeping her tired and hungry for some time after their marriage, but he also insists on framing this treatment in a language of love, indicating his eagerness for Kate to adapt to her rightful, socially appointed place and his willingness to make their marriage a happy one. Above all, Petruccio is a comic figure, an exaggerated persona who continually makes the audience laugh. And though we laugh with Petruccio as he Kate, we also laugh at him, as we see him satirize the very gender inequalities that the plot of The Taming of the Shrew ultimately upholds.