Taming of the Shrew - Essay Example

To Petruchio, his marriage to Katharina will help him to transform his economic status. From this play, we find that Petruchio manages to tame Katharina into an obedient and submissive wife (Dixon, 2012). This is clearly depicted in Katharina’s speech concerning the roles of women within the society. Katharina denotes that it is not prudent for a woman to engage into war, with a man. She further goes on to denote that it is the role of a woman to obey, love and serve. The term shrew refers to a woman who is assertive, aggressive, and bad tempered (Dixon, 20120.

When this play commences, Katharina is portrayed as an irritable, petulant and peevish individual. Kate has a bad reputation in Padua of being a Shrew. However, Kate’s behavior stemmed from the fact that she was unable to attract a suitor, and her desperation was taking a toll on her. Kate is vulnerable to uncontrollable displays of anger; as a result, she attacks anybody who provokes her. This is better displayed when she verbally abused Petruchio when he came to propose to her (Dixon, 2012).

It is possible to denote that she thought Petruchio was out to make fun of her. Petruchio responded to these attacks by very insensitive words. He told her that he would marry her whether she liked it or not. In fact, Katharina does not offer any protest when Petruchio asks her father for Katharina’s hand in marriage. . Katharina is very envious of the manner in which her father is treating her younger sister, Bianca (Dixon, 2012). Her father loved Bianca because of her submissiveness, and obedience.

These are virtues that Katharina loathed and did not have. Another source of jealousy emanated from Bianca’s ability to attract suitors. For example, Bianca managed to attract the love and attention of Lucentio, Gremio and Hortensio (Shakespeare and Foster, 2012). On the other hand, Katharina had no suitors, and thus Bianca could not get married before Katharina. This really made Katharina unhappy and desperate and the effects were the emergence of her aggressive, quick tempered nature. Petruchio is the person who comes out to change this aggressive behavior of Katharina.

In fact, when looking at their marriage, we can denote that it was meant to fail from the first day. This is because of Petruchio’s arrogance, and Katharina’s insubordination. However, this was the beginning of taming Katharina’s shrewd behaviors. During their wedding, Petruchio arrives late, and on a lame horse. He is also dressed inappropriately for a wedding. There are two schools of thought that emerge from this behavior by Petruchio (Shakespeare and Foster, 2012). The first argument is that Petruchio did not love Katharina, which is true.

The second argument is that Petruchio wanted to tame the aggressive behavior of Katharina by sending a non-verbal message to her that she is not very important to him. We have to note that, while Petruchio was in the process of taming the behavior of Katharina, he used intimidation, coercion, and verbal arguments. For example, Petruchio verbally argues with Katharina on the first day they meet (Shakespeare and Foster, 2012). This instance denotes that