Kate's Longing For True-Love - Essay Example

Kate's Longing For True-Love In the play “The Taming of the Shrew”, Shakespeare depicts a positive assessment of the relationship between Petruchio and Kate. Throughout the play, it is evident that Petruchio rescues Kate from a miserable social life marked by ridicule and scorn. Using his exclusive, yet unique taming methods, he shows her how to create a more fulfilling, private life with him. This transformation is due to Petruchio’s excessive and superfluous kindness towards Kate and cruelty towards all others who treated her imperfectly. Although Kate feels that nobody should be able to control her actions – the main reason for her being called an “impatient shrew” by those close to her, she portrays herself as a dynamic, stubborn character, and later reconstructs her personality into an obedient, loyal, wife, after falling in love with Petruchio (813). Looking at her personality-shift closely, readers can confirm that the true difference between the shrewish-Kate introduced to the obedient-Kate portrayed in the final moments of the play is that she learns to look beyond who she is and begins to express love. With conviction, it is Kate’s longing for true love, in addition to Petruchio’s assistance with her personal character change, that guides her to explicitly vent her love and empathy towards her new husband and ultimately transforms into her new submissive character. Through the course of the play, Kate exhibits characteristics of wanting to experience honest love, regardless of how obnoxious and hateable she is in the beginning. The first instance of her desire for love is evident in Act Two, Scene One. In this scene, Kate attacks Bianca, her younger sister, with questions concerning all the suitors who are waiting to take Bianca's hands for marriage. Bianca identifies Kate's interrogation as an act of jealousy and a greed for being loved and asks “is it for [Gremio] you do envy me so?” (797). However, examining her questions to Bianca and her answers to Bianca inquiry show that it is not Gremio or any other suitor that Kate experiences jealousy towards, but she is envious of Bianca for the reason that everyone, even her father, sees her as the better sister. Kate speculates about these desirous feelings toward Bianca and challenges her father of loving her sister more by saying, “[Bianca] is your treasure” (798). These situations and instances reflect Kate’s conviction that her father views Bianca as the more valuable daughter and supports her impression that Baptista does not feel the same way towards her compared to Bianca, the preferred sister. On the other hand, Kate's desire for love is bolstered when Petruchio arrives in the play; she finally finds a person who gives her compliments and shows the highest kindness towards everything she craves. Regardless of Petruchio's relentless and headstrong attitude in approaching Kate, he is the first person from who she hears such approbations as being told that “[her] beauty sounded [him]” or being asked “to woo thee for [his] wife” (802). After his flattering first-impressions, he eventually requests her hand in marriage. At first, Kate shows her stubbornness when Petruchio decides that their wedding day will be on Sunday without anyone's consent, especially without her permission. Infuriated with being told what to do, she replies “I'll see thee hanged on Sunday first” trying to mislead Petruchio (806). Although Kate feels that she is too independent and uncontrolled to allow a man to tell her what to do for the sake of society, she does in fact arrive at the wedding on Sunday and further waits for Petruchio to reach the ceremony. Her actions not only proclaim that she actually falls in love with Petruchio and wants to marry him, but it also proves Petruchio's earliest “taming” effects on her as a person. In his analytical essay “Neither a Tamer nor a Shrew”, Corinne Abate writes “Petruchio's tactics of positive reinforcement in his unconventional wooing of Katherine allow her in turn to create a private space for herself within her marriage, as she eventually deems the public sphere to be immaterial or inessential, literally without essence; such a revelation provides her the means whereby she can escape both her damaged public reputation, as well as her self-serving, adversarial father Baptista,” expressing his thoughts on what Kate does after marriage to zone herself out of the public eyes and her egotistical father (“Neither a Tamer nor a Shrew,” par. 1). Essentially, Kate's jealously towards Bianca in the initial scenes regarding Baptista's preference for Bianca as his favorite daughter and everyone's notion on her as a shrew of the town distress her state of mind; however, when Petruchio enters the play and holds Kate's hands in marriage, she is filled with satisfaction of finding the “right” man for her and fulfilling her longing for love. These sequence of activities lead to the depiction of her new empathy toward exposing love. Along with overcoming being scorned by her family members and finding true-love with Petruchio, Kate becomes more self-aware for others and increasingly erases her ego, which enhances her ability to empathize during the play. Her argumentative and belligerent demeanor is not fully due to the need to be loved, but also her self-centeredness. When the couples meet the first time, Petruchio plans his actions and “pays only positive, affirming, and supportive compliments to Katherine...not [yet] killing her with kindness” to set a good impression on her (“Neither a Tamer nor a Shrew,” par. 4). However, after marriage, Petruchio starts his “taming” lessons by acting like a “shrew” on his wedding day and throughout their honeymoon to show Kate how her bellicose behavior resembles in another person. The shrewish behaviors that Petruchio demonstrate involve plenty of shouting, exaggerated generosity, verbal abuse of servants and simple heartless action toward Kate. Throughout this taming process, Petruchio deploys some exhausting and afflicting methods such as sleep and hunger deprivation, disgrace and embarrassment, and mental manipulation to incline Kate into an obedient wife. As Petruchio executes his techniques, she witnesses other people being desecrated and oppressed for her sake the first time in her life, while Petruchio asserts himself as an even worse arrogant-jerk than herself. One of the most influential and effective manipulative techniques Petruchio uses to tame Kate is being overly kind to his mistress. For instance, when Petruchio's yells “Where is the rascal cook?” at his servants for serving “[the] burnt...meat”, she insists that meat is still edible and defends the servants from his rough scoldings by saying, “I pray you, 'tis a fault unwilling”; hence, representing a turning point in Kate's selfish character (823). Even though one can argue that Kate's hunger will drive her to say anything to eat the meat, it is important to note that she does not use her starvation as an excuse to protect the cook from Petruchio, but refers to the cook's blunder in preparing the food. Her compliance to think selflessly in order to secure others from criticism and abuse not only displays the acknowledgment of her social role as a wife, but it also reflects on her new quality to empathize with the outside-world. Despite all the cruel, yet efficient taming techniques that Petruchio used against Kate, she proves her growing love for him in several instances throughout the play. The best illustration of her love for Petruchio is demonstrated in her final speech, considering the sincerity with which she presents her speech to the crowd (the society) and the two other married women. Ramsey-Kruz argues in his critical essay that the final speech is “a tragic gesture of defeat completing an excessively brutal taming” done on Kate by Petruchio (“Rising Above the Bait: Kate's Transformation from Bear to Falcon”). In her final dialogue, she identifies marriage as an everlasting alliance in which a man and a woman do things for each other to maintain the relationship. When she characterizes a husband's importance to Bianca and the window, she says “thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, / thy head thy sovereign, one that cares for thee” (848). Even though most of her descriptions of a husband are dramatic representations for today's married man, when she says “one that cares for thee”, Kate exemplifies true seriousness in what she is expressing to her audience for it can be related to any marital relationship. This depiction of her husband indicates her acceptance of Petruchio and clarifies that despite Petruchio's berserk way of expressing his love and her way of reciprocating her love through obedience, they truly care for each other. Along with her cultivating love for Petruchio, she exemplifies that her new ability to empathize has also evolved. As she is giving her lengthy speech in the last scene of the play, her unexpected developing companionship with Petruchio is exposed once again when she asserts that her compliance to be obedient and affectionate is “too little payment for so great a debt” that she owes Petruchio for what he undertakes for her as a husband (849). These illustrations of Kate's transformation from wanting to be loved to someone who has learned to experience love and express empathy, displays Kate changing from an obnoxious female character into a tamed and amenable wife. Throughout most of “The Taming of the Shrew,” Kate is portrayed as a stubborn shrew who will never be tamed. However, Petruchio enters the play with a bitter-persistent attitude and tames her to be submissive. In the beginning of the play, Kate displays her longing for love when she feels jealousy towards Bianca as she realizes people favored her more so then herself. However, when Petruchio wins Kate's love with his charm and feisty attitude, she her desire for love is satisfied. After marriage, Petruchio uses several techniques to tame Kate's shrewish attitude and transforms Kate's overall personality. She not only learns to step outside of herself and defend others, but she also learns her social role and changes into an obedient and loving wife. All of these traits are apparent in her anti-feminist speech that she presents to a crowd. In this speech she proves her love for her husband and also exemplifies a realization that her actions affect others, which establishes her new character shaped with empathy and love. Ultimately, even though Petruchio assisted Kate with her progress from a shrew to an obedient wife, if she had not desired for love in the first place, her amazing transformation would not have occurred. Work Cited Corinne, S. Abate. "Neither a Tamer Nor a Shrew Be: A Defense of Petruchio and Katherine" Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 97. Detroit: Gale, 2006. Literature Resource Center. Web. Apr. 15 2012. Helga, Ramsey-Kurz. "Raising Above the Bait: Kate's Transformation from Bear to Falcon.” Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Michelle Lee. Vol. 126. Detroit: Gale, 2006. Literature Resource Center. Web. Apr. 15 2012. Shakespeare, William. “The Taming of the Shrew.” Prentice Hall Literature Portfolio. Ed. Desmet et al.Christy Desmet, D. Alexis Hart, Deborah Church Miller. Upper Saddle River,New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc., 2007. 773-850. Print. Read More