a word from our sponsors
See the new shakespeare.com. This feature, while it still provides useful information, is no longer maintained.
Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries & Replies From Everyone Else 3.15.97: Top | Help
As I go rifling through my notes here, I find that I have a bit to say on
The Taming of the Shrew...
The first is to watch the BBC series production! John Cleese as Petruchio
is wild!Keep in mind that in Shakespeare's day, the roles of women were always
played by boys... (My prof always made a big deal of this fact.) By having
a boy act convincingly as a woman, the argument is implicit that to become
a woman, one merely has to act like a woman; it's all teachable behavior.
This fact is blatantly brought to the fore of our minds in the prologue
with Sly... He is easily convinced that the young boy could be his wife,
thereby demonstrating that the difference between men and women is simply
a set of learned behaviors.
Now, the boy portraying Kate is simply *pretending* to be a woman -- he only
*acts* like a shrew... If a young boy can do this, why not a grown woman?
All she has to become a shrew is act like a shrew.
This is not to say that I think that Kate is merely puting on a face, I think
she behaves as she does because that is her true character. But surely she
knows that this "personality" is not going to get her a husband (there is evi-
dence within the work to prove that Kate does aspire to marry, but it's late
and I'm having trouble recalling the exact words she uses... perhaps it's in
II.i), so I suggest that her actual "taming" should be viewed with a large
degree of suspicion.
I believe that Kate merely plays the role of agreeable wife, just as Bianca
has merely been playing the role of agreeable daughter throughout the play.I don't know that any of this makes sense... As I say, it's late, and I've
just gotten home from work...
Posted by LunarCaustic on March 22, 1997 at 02:53:01
In Reply to "Shrew comments" posted by ella on March 21, 1997 at 14:53:44
Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries & Replies From Everyone Else 3.15.97: Top | Help