How Does Shakespeare Use Femininity in The Taming of the Shrew - Coursework Example

How Shakespeare uses Femininity in The Taming of the Shrew. of the of the In major works of literature created by William Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew conveys an emotive and quintessential experience for the audience.His writings are highly universal and enable the readers to create parallels between their personal experiences and connect to the characters shown in his masterpieces. Educational institutions and scholars have dissected and analyzed this theater piece critically and have discovered how the different aspects and development of the human condition, have been depicted within The Taming of the Shrew.Audiences have described this work of art for a long time as an impeccable combination of ancient forces represented in literature. The widespread success garnered by taming of the shrew has led to its application in various cultures across the globe.This essay will mainly focus on the roles played by the female characters and also how feminity was portrayed within this classic piece of literature.It will also show how these aspects contributed to the development of the story and the themes within the play. Analyzing the roles will be essential to contend that the aspect of femininity is integral and important to the whole story and also the major conclusions connected to this point that Shakespeare wants to portray to the audience.The Taming of the Shrew is one of the earlier works created by Shakespear.Its conception was presumed to be around the year 1593-1594.The dialog is on a personal level between the male and female characters and how their relationships develop the plot of the story.In the Canon of Shakespear, this play has been adapted in many stages in recent times.However, it is still hard to perform Taming of the Shrew due to its controversial theme of wife taming woven and linked together with the silence of the protagonist’s motivations. The plot mainly revolves around control, fascinating aspects concerning marriage and also about gender.As the story develops into a climax, a series of unfortunate and distasteful acts of repression are directed against a strong woman.The characters who majorly contribute to the development of this story are Petruchio and Katherine.The story mainly revolves around these two characters.As the story begins, there are two sisters, Katherine, and Bianca.Katherine is known as the shrewd one while Bianca is depicted as lovely and more beautiful than her sister.Their father wants both of them to be married. However, Bianca has to be betrothed to a wealthy husband due to her angelic wits and demeanor only after Katherine has been married to whoever suitor that seems interested in her.The suitors of Bianca now take the task of finding Katherine a suitor which will emerge as Petruccio as the play develops. The reader is to make assumptions that Bianca, who had a weak temperament as compared to her older sister Katherine, clearly was withering away as Katherine was tormenting her family with her brutish ill-mannered nature.Katherine highly resented her sister.Her father favored Bianca over her, and this was not taken lightly by Katherine.Bianca’s meekness is portrayed when Suitors came calling and, she then timidly cowers behind her father while Katherine, the outspoken of the sisters spoke up for herself Shakespeare (Act 1 scene 1. Page 57-58). The broken relationship between the siblings is also shown when Katherine torments her sister with both verbal and physical abuse. As she brought her sister to her father and other potential suitors, she pulled her hair and bound her sister’s hands like an animal.Bianca, unfortunately, lies that she hates all her gentlemen callers as none of them catches her eye.She portrays herself as timid and innocent and all she aspired for was to be obedient and respectful to everyone older than her Shakespeare (Act 1 Scene1 Page 80-84). We may also assume that the personal idealism and identity of Bianca revolves around her relations with her suitors and also the attention she garners from the gentlemen who intended to have a relationship with her.This relationship portrays how submissive she is in terms of he principles and who she is as they also revolve around male dominance.Katherine is, however, the complete opposite of her sister.She also was an idealist with strong convictions and entirely independent of men.Katherine lacks experience in being subtle but is outspoken in terms of sharing her views no matter the consequences.Katherines sharp tongue made her well known in the city and more than once irritated very many people.In the play, Katherine is shown to be a shrew because of her harsh temperament and excessive use of degrading language to all those who were around her. Shakespeare (Act 1 Scene 1 Page 61-65). As the plot develops, a potential suitor to Katherine, Petruchio emerges.Hortensio explicitly describes Katherine’s demeanor to Petruchio as she was well known widely for her scolding sharp tongue. Shakespeare (Act 1 Scene 2 Page 96).Petruchio is by now more than intrigued and begins his quest of winning Kathrine’s hand and also favor from their family as well.Petruchio was an individual from Verona, who was a colleague to one of many of Bianca’s suitors. The driving force behind Petruccio’s resolution to marry Katherine mainly originated from his ambitious thirst to become wealthy.Once he becomes knowledgeable on the reputation of Katherine, he diverts his course, making the wooing process all about money.He thought that once he gained this wealth, his status within the society will increase in terms of respect and recognition. Lucentio was another wealthy individual visits Padua, Bianca’s hometown, and ultimately they both end up meeting.However due to the restrictions imposed by Bianca’s father on the type of suitors that are allowed to approach Bianca, Lucentio had to devise a skillful plan to meet Bianca.He disguised himself as a tutor in classic lore that Bianca’s father agreed.All this effort was done due to the condition that suitors will only be allowed to see Bianca if her sister Katherine is betrothed to a potential suitor. For Petruccio, he had a goal to achieve and not even the mention of Katherine’s looks being undesirable and brutish could encumber his efforts.Shakespeare (Act 1, Scene 2 Pages 65-71). The assumption that underlies the plot is that husbands have the complete justification to tame their wives.The women are subdued and degraded into mere subjects without any autonomy to their husbands.This line of thought supports an anti-feminist interpretation of the play. Finally, Petruchio manages to force the tormenting Katherine to yield to his advances and accepts his proposal of marriage.Shakespear (Act 2 Scene 1. Pages 134–37).During the Sunday wedding gathering, the groom Petruccio demands that Katherine her bride should both leave the ceremony even before it officially begins.Katherine obeys without having any objections to Petruccio’s unreasonable request.Eventually, Petruccio gives the room to Lucente and Bianca the room which they would have used during their wedding night.The roles of the two sisters shift drastically as the controlled, easily manipulated became Katherine. After Katherine had become a married woman, all the traces of her shrewd conduct just faded away into obscurity.Her objectivity and her connections to her principles dissipated. Marriage seems to have brought misfortune upon Katherine to her life beyond serving her husband was entirely absent.However, the husband still attempts to be delicate and considerate in order to hide his real intentions towards Katherine.It should be Petruccio who views himself as the embodiment of truth while he only spews lies from his mouth.All Petruccio does wear the cloak of a friend just to achieve the benefactor’s work emphasized that throughout the play, Petruccio falsifies his real identity more than Katherine. Petruccio views himself as the embodiment of truth while he only spews lies from his mouth. Petruccio does not use violence to control Katherine within the play.However, through kindness that is his disillusioned trait; he can tame the shrew.Shakespeare (Act 4 Scene 1 Page 208). Petruccio formulates a strategy in which he used carefully developed and exaggerated hostility towards other people that Katherine herself would view these actions as genuine kindness.Shakespeare (Act 4, Scene 1.Page 204). After the wedding, they both returned to the house. Petruccio then tells the audience almost in the form of a soliloquy that: “Thus I have politicly begun my reign” Shakespeare (Act 4, Scene 1. Page 188).He also compares the process where he controls his wife with falcon training. A trainer of a hawk known as a falconer does not use violence against the bird but impeccably manipulates the thought process of the bird mainly for his gain.When the falconer achieves this, he would be regarded as a skillful falconer who is equal to the mark of a gentleman.The falconer could now control his subject through devising a technical efficient policy while not using violence during this taming process. Turberville (1611). He further states that the first interaction made by the falconer to the hawk should mostly happen when the head of the bird is covered with a head covering which blinds the bird.In this state, all the defenses of the bird are terminated.This hood eventually is removed once the bird knows the meat she is being served.When this process is repeated severally, the bird eventually becomes tame. Turberville (Page 309). The bird then starts attaching itself to the falconer, and finally affection for her captor begins to emerge.This metaphor is used in the play by Petruccio during his soliloquy of the comparison between the controlling of the falcon.Katherine is not allowed to have any food and restricted from sleeping all in anticipation of the lack of knowledge of Petruccio’s next course of action.Shakespeare (Act 4, Scene 1, Page 190). Petruccio also covers her head with a hooded clothing to completely destroy her capacity of being humorous and outspoken.Shakespeare (Act 4, Scene 1 Page 194). Here, his primary objective is to make Katherine completely decipher the call of her keeper’s call.Iris Hsin-Chun Tuan states that the readers should not interpret the role of the women as mainly being submissive and compliant to all the requests of their husbands.However, she continues that these are intelligent women using their patriarchy ideology to their benefit but carefully and playfully undermine its actual value within its conceptual framework.The woman under subjection clearly defines her beliefs and develops ways of handling men in order to become equal to them in status rather than becoming the object of their control.Therefore, Katherine is only pretending to be obedient to Petruccio in order to acquire what she truly needs.She ultimately realizes there is no alternative but to submit because it is the only solution to dealing with Petruccio.Tuan (2002). The development of the play brings both sisters together during the wedding ceremony of Bianca and Lucentio.Hortensio and the widow are also included here in the play.The widow then refers to Katherine as a shrew during the festivities while Bianca, without consideration of the feelings of her sister, flirts with Petruccio.Biancas coquetry illustrates how the outspoken roles of both sisters are slowly changing as the story proceeds. As the three women leave the sitting room with the other women, the three men are left drinking and engrossed in a discussion.Petruccio then introduce the subject of how bets should be offered against the wives immediately coming to their husbands when called. Bianca and the widow are headstrong and refuse the invitation.Even when the servants came to direct them towards the place where their husbands were sitting they never relented.However, when Katherine was called, she gracefully and elegantly came to her husband with complete obedience. The shifting of the labels is now entirely evident as Katherine is now no longer the shrewd and outspoken.Her sister claims this role and within the play, assumptions can be made that Bianca was the intelligent sister of the two.Katherina was then ordered to bring the two disobedient women and scolds them in a dignified manner maintaining her grace and elegance throughout.Katherine proves to them that her husband did get the ideal wife. After this, Petrucci then kissed Katherine as everyone watched completely dumbfounded and finally they left.The importance of femininity in The Taming of the Shrew should be highly emphasized and critically analyzed.The role of the female characters should not be ignored when studying this book.In this play, Shakespeare shows how formidable and flexible the psyche of the female truly is and how this flexible ego can be controlled. Femininity is one of the cornerstone factors that help the moral development and progression of the story.Without the female characters, the play would not have brought out the key issues that emerge from femininity and several other themes would not have been clearly defined without the femininity aspect. Also, the play does not emancipate women and does not help them become completely aware of their power and how outspoken they can be.Shakespeare mainly portrays struggle within the marital framework and also exposes the prelude to change in terms of how the society views femininity The Taming of the Shrew depicts a significant shift in the character and demeanor of Katherine as the play comes to an end, strengthens the argument that a person can truly and honestly change.Also, it depicts that the best characters of a person can be brought out by certain people.When Katherine was tamed, she not only become an obedient wife to Petruchio, but she also became a better person. The portrayal of the two sisters in the play magnifies Shakespeare”s tremendous ingenuity in creating these two characters and breathing life into them and affect the audience in a colossal manner.The imagination of Shakespear in depicting feminity through these two characters and others is believable to the reader and clearly without a shadow of doubt show why he truly is an impeccable Titan in English literature References Brooks B, February 1, 2014, Feminist Struggle in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Available from: http://www.scrc.us.com/discoveries/feminist-struggle-in-shakespeares-the-taming-of-the-shrew/ Mott, PM, 1894, Katharina in The Taming of the Shrew, Available from: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/eagle/congress/mott.html Role of Women in Shakespears The Taming of the Shrew, 13 May 2015.Available from: http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=14735 Shakespeare, W. 2008, The Taming of the Shrew. The Norton Shakespeare: Based on the Oxford Edition, 2nd edn, Greenblatt S. New York: Norton, pp.169-227. The Taming of the Shrew.Available from: http://www.enotes.com/topics/taming-of-the-shrew/essays-analysis/taming-shrew-othello-minor-roles Tuan, I.H 2002, "Music and Sound: Feminism Echoes in The Taming of the Shrew, Kiss Me Kate and The Vagina Monologues." Cultural Studies Monthly 221. Turberville, G, 1611. The Book of Falconry or Hawking: For the Delight and Pleasure of All Noblemen and Gentlemen.Dolan pp.309–10 Read More