Taming Of The Shrew Inside Essay, Research Paper

Despite the fact that Shakespeare is mostly known for its tragedian playwrights,

yet, in The Taming Of The Shrew, he once again proves that he is capable to

write anything even comedy. The Taming Of The Shrew is a play within a play.

However, the play takes place towards the end of the 16th century. Most of the

comedy scenes are shifted from the city to the country and back to the city.

Therefore, most of the scenes took place in the city of Padua, Italy.

Christopher Sly is a drunken tinker who appears in the induction of the play.

Nevertheless, he is fooled by a lord stating that he is a lord and has been mad

for fifteen years. Therefore, there is a play that is to be performed to the

drunker. In the play there are two main characters and other minor

personalities. As one of the main characters, Katherine is called a shrew, even

by her father Baptista, but Katherine has a deeper character than what she seems

to appear. Katherine’s reactions are due to the preferences that her father

resembles between her and her sister. However, as a consequence to her fathers’

preference she is hurt and seeks for revenge. It is an immature response, but

the only one she knows, and it serves for her dual purpose of her hurt and

revenge. The transformation that she undergoes near the end of the play is not

one of character, but one of attitude. She alters dramatically from the bitter

accursed shrew to the obedient and happy wife when she discover that her husband

loves her enough to attempt to change her for her own good, as well for his. The

other main character is Pretruchio her husband. On the surface he appears to be

a rough, noisy, and insensitive, one who cares nothing for Katherine’s feelings

so long as she has money. Yet, in the inside Petruchio’s intention is not

interested for her money but the challenge of capturing her because of the

reputation that she has. Like a secondary character is Katherine’s sister Bianca.

Apparently in her gentle behavior, she is an unkind sister and through the play

she is in fact a disobedient wife. She fosters her father’s attitude of

favoritism for herself and dislike for Katherine by playing the part of a whole

victim. As another secondary character, there is Lucentio. He is a wealthy man

devoted to Bianca for obscure reasons. He marries Bianca after going through

many difficult tasks in order for them to get married. They are perhaps a

typical pair of immature lovers; they think only of themselves, and each

considers his individual wishes before those of his beloved. Baptista is the

father of Katherine and Bianca. He is the harried father, having difficulty

marrying his two daughters because one of them is a shrew. He is not, an object

of sympathy, since Katherine is a shrew because of his treatment of her. He

ignores the question of his daughters’ happiness in seeking mates for them. He

wishes, in the case of Bianca, to make a good bargain and obtain the highest

possible financial, concessions from the suitors and, in Katherine’s case,

simply to get rid of a problem child. A minor character is Vincention. He is the

father Lucentio. He is extremely fond of his son and finds himself in grief when

he discovers that his son may have been harmed. He has a bad temper and he

displays a worse anger when he finds out that Tranio has tricked him. Hortensio

is a suitor of Bianca. He is basically a good man, but perhaps foolish.

Throughout the play he declares his real identity to Petruchio and later he

discovers that Bianca and Lucentio have been having a romance between them.

Gremio, he is called a pantaloon and is characterized as such. As elderly

gentleman, he seeks the hand of a young girl. Grumio, Petruchio’s servant; he is

a comic servant who provides several humor scenes. Finally, Tranio, he

originally adopts Lucentio’s position with some of reluctance, but he displays

an increasing enthusiasm for the role as the play progresses, until he is

denounced as fake by Vincentio. In the play there is a plot and subplot. In

order for Bianca to get married her sister Katherine has to get married first.

The plot consists of Petruchio arriving from the country with his servant,

Grumio, intending to find himself a wife. He visits his old friend Hortensio,

who jokingly suggest that he marry Katherine. Petruchio declares that her

fortune is enough for him, regardless of her personality. Petruchio announces

himself to Baptista as a suitor of Katherine and holds a stormy, private

interview with the young lady, after which he sets a wedding date even though

Katherine strongly objects. He then leaves for Venice to prepare for the

wedding. Petruchio arrives at his wedding very late and ridiculously attired.

After marrying Katherine, he forces her to return to the country with him

immediately, leaving the wedding banquet to the guests. When they arrive

home-cold, tired, and hungry-he refuses to let her eat or sleep. He finds fault

with the meat and the making of the bed, pretending that they are not good

enough for Katherine and she shall therefore have none. Petruchio is taming his

wife as he is would tame an animal. However, Petruchio continues his taming. He

offers to purchase finery for Katherine for a trip to her father’s house, but

then finds fault with all the haberdasher and a tailor have to offer, concluding

that she must wear what she has already. The subplot in the play is with Bianca.

Lucentio, a young man from Pisa, arrives in Padua with his servants, Tranio and

Biondello, to study. He sees and falls at once in love with Bianca. Lucentio, in

disguise, offers himself to Baptista as a tutor to Bianca, and Hortensio, in

disguise, does likewise. To disvert, Baptista’s attention from Lucentio, Tranio

becomes another suitor for Bianca’s hand, assuming Lucentio’s identity, at his

master’s instruction. Baptista now informs Gremio and Tranio that whichever one

of them offers the finest dowry may have Bianca in marriage. Tranio wins out,

but Baptista says that he must have Lucentio’s father agreement to the dowry,

since it is a large amount that he cannot believe that Vincentio would be part

of it. Lucentio, in the disguise of a tutor, declares himself to Bianca, who is

at first cautious, but soon finds herself in love with him. Hortensio is

horrified at Bianca’s behavior toward Lucentio, and gives up her suit for her,

declaring that he will marry a widow who has loved him for some time. Tranio

persuades a Pendant to assume the role of Lucentio’s father, by telling him that

he is a citizen from Mantua and he is in danger in Padua and must therefore

pretend to be from Pisa. The climax of the main plot is therefore, when the

shrew is tamed, although she was never a real shrew. Petruchio, Katherine, and

Hortensio are on the way to Baptista’s house. On their way Petruchio remarks how

bright the moon is, and Katherine tells him that it is the sun rather than the

moon. Petruchio replies that it will be what he says it is or they will return

home at once and not go to Padua. After all she agrees with him that the sun is

the moon"?be it moon, or sun, or what you please to call it a

rush-candle, Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me"(The Taming Of The

Shrew, Act IV-scene V, lines15-17, pg.187). During their trip, they overtake

Vincentio, on his way to Padua to visit his son. Petruchio calls him a young

girl, and Katherine agrees that he is indeed a lovely young virgin. On their way

Petruchio informs Vincentio that his son is about to marry with Katherine’s

sister when they last saw him. However, he thinks that they are joking with him.

The climax of the subplot is when Lucentio and Bianca are married, and he admits

to the deception which he practiced to gain her love. When Petruchio, Katherine,

Hortensio, and Vincentio arrive in Padua and Vincentio knocks on the door, he

declares himself as the father of Lucentio. Moreover, Tranio, Baptista, and

Biondello pretend to not know and start calling him a lunatic, he thinks that

Tranio and Biondello have murdered his son. When the officer is about to arrest

the older man, Lucentio and Bianca appear and they say they are married and

Lucentio explained everything that he did in order to get married with Bianca.

After the confusion was solved the three newlywed couples gathered together in a

banquet in Lucentio’s house. Hortensio and Lucentio are doubtful that Petruchio

was able to tame Katherine, therefore, they are laughing of him. Petruchio says

that his wife is the most obedient one from the three of them. Nevertheless,

each one of them called their wife. Bianca said that she was too busy and cannot

come, the widow states that Hortensio should go her instead, and Katherine as

being the most obedient she was the only one that went to her husband. In

addition, Petruchio orders to Katherine to bring the other two wives to the

dinning hall and delivers a lecture on the duty a wife owes her husband. After

all, they agree that Petruchio has tamed quite well Katherine. Love and marriage

are the concerns of Shakespeare’s Taming Of The Shrew. The play offers different

methods in courting a woman and choosing a mate and then coming to the terms

with the mate that one has chosen. We see the differences of Petruchio-Katherine

and Lucentio-Bianca. The unhappy Katherine discovers how to be a happy

Katherine. Petruchio has turned her from unreasonable aggressiveness to

unreasonable submission, in order to obtain a comfortable compromise. On the

other hand, Bianca seems to be apparently the ideal woman and at the end of the

play she seems to be unpleasant and bad-tempered, now that she is married.

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Shakespeare, William. The taming Of The Shrew. New York: Pocket Books,1992.