Taming of the Shrew the Essay

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ii., 164). This could be taken literally and superficially as a direct commentary on the place of women in marriage and in society, or it could be that Katherine is simply going along wt things for now, either as a part of a plan with Petrcuhio (the couple wins quite a lot of money for her obedience), of for her own motives. Like Sly, she sees no reason to disturb things when all is generally well, but is likely in far more control than it may appear.

This interpretation is, of course, only one possibility, and it is not the one that Franco Zeffirelli went with when he directed Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in a famous film version of the Taming of the Shrew. In the "wooing" scene, for instance, though Katherine (Taylor) delivers nearly as good as she gets throughout, she is quite obviously made the weaker of the two characters, as her frantic feeling marks her clearly as the prey. Pertuchio's calm perseverance in pursuing her stands in a sharp contrast to her behavior, making him appear to be by far the stronger of the two characters. This is especially noticeable when he uses a rope to swing across to a high loft where Katehrine has fled for safety; she shrieks and reacts in surprise as he calmly climbs the rope and sings across the open space, crashing into a railing without so much as a grunt while she screams and runs down the hall (Zeffirelli).

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Though Pertuchio must end up with the upper hand in this scene -- that is the way it's scripted -- there was a definite choice made here to make Katherine seem weaker, and a different interpretation of the script would lead to very different action.

In her essay "The London Scene: The City and the Court," Anne Barton reflects that Shakespeare's plays demonstrated a "lack of social detail" and biting edge when compared to other playwrights of his time (Barton 127). While this might be true, it might also be possible that we must simply look deeper at his works to find his subtle social commentaries. Though his views on women as they are expressed in this play are by no means certain, or even necessarily reflective of his views on women overall, the potential for various interpretations certainly exists. This is part of what continues to make Shakespeare and the Taming of the Shrew so popular.

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