“The Taming of A Shrew” changes the way that we view Shakespeare`s complex analysis of performance as being ingrained in both class and gender. It has a more empowered view of women than “The Shrew” and suggests that women can subvert the oppression they face through their intelligence. It implies that Kate`s speech at the end of the play is sarcastic, and that anyone who believes they can tame women or servants are as foolish and as ridiculous as drunken Sly. This is a much more progressive ending than that of “The Shrew”, which suggests to the audience that a man can crush a woman’s spirit and dominate her completely so long as he lie to her and deprive her of food and water. Rather than depicting Petruchio as a dominant and powerful male figure who manages to break Kate’s spirit, he is presented in “A Shrew” as both abusive and ludicrous. His methods for subduing Kate and turning her into the perfect wife are patently ridiculous. He vows that he will “(...) kill a wife with kindness; And thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humour.” and it seems that he believes these words to be true. For Petruchio, to tame his wife as a falcon is tamed, through abuse and starvation (2.1, last lines before 2.2) is to do her a favour. In “A Shrew”, Petruchio is also easily duped. When Kate makes her final speech in Act 5 it is implied in “A Shrew” that it is sarcastic. The speech is devoid of Kate’s usual cleverness and wit. It is repetitive, longwinded and boring, containing only ideas that Petruchio wants to hear. Kate declares that “Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper”, that a woman’s “(...)strength as weak, [woman's] weakness past compare” and that “A woman moved is like a fountain troubled, Muddy, illseeming, thick, bereft of beauty”, all ideas which correspond exactly to what Petruchio believes to be true about women. Petruchio is thrilled by it, exclaiming “Why, there's a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.” (5.2. right at the end) and triumphantly telling
Lucentio “Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white”. By juxtaposing Kate’s end speech with Sly’s declaration that he, too, can tame a shrew, Shakespeare is demonstrating how men are easy to fool. When Sly drunkenly proclaims that “[he`ll] to [his] wife wife presently and tame her too if she anger [him]” in “A Shrew”, he seems foolish rather than a dominant patriarch. It is clear to the reader that his ideas are ridiculous, since Sly cannot speak without slurring his words at that point, let alone tame an angry woman. The idea of taming a strong and independent woman is thus shown to be a fantasy of a weak and despicable breed of man rather than an ideal to aspire to. Petruchio is revealed to be nothing more than Sly, dressed up in fancy clothes and speaking more coherently he, too, believes that he can tame a shrew, and any evidence that he is unable to is simply ignored. If the final scene “A Shrew” is removed, the play loses its central message. Rather than being a humorous play about how nobles are so narcissistic that they fail to see that the women and servants have the upper hand, it becomes a play about the total dominance of men. Petruchio is an abusive husband who succeeds in breaking the spirit of his lovely and onceopinionated wife. He starves her, lies to her and is cruel to her until she submits to him not only emotionally through her speech but also physically. She “vails [her] stomachs, for it is no boot, And places [her] hands below [her] husband's foot: In token of which duty(...)”, inviting Petruchio to finish crushing her spirit by literally crushing her hand with his boot.
topic sentences: The scene in ``The Taming Of A Shrew`` at the end of the play, in which Sly drunkenly proclaims that he knows how to tame a shrew, softens the horror of hearing Katherine utter her final speech. Katherine’s taming is just as false as Sly’s transformation from drunkard to Lord. quotes: the miracle of Kate's taming, even though, at least as we like to read and teach the play nowadays, it is by no means clear that Kate is thoroughly converted to the system of patriarchal hegemony she advocates. Whether she is or not, there is a strong illusion of reality surrounding her speech at the end of the play: we are invited to forget that the taming of Kate by Petruchio started out as a mere play within a play performed for the delectation of one Christopher Sly, drunken tinker turned temporary aristocrat. He lurches off, vowing to tame his own termagant wife at home now that his dream has taught him how to do it. He is unlikely to succeed, we can confidently predict, given his staggering condition and his obvious character ological distance from the charismatic stage figure Petruchio. Instead of convincing us that the inner play's wifetaming scenario is a possible one in reality, Sly's vow turns it into the wishfulfillment fantasy of a habitual drunkard who is as likely to be punished by his wife for this night out as he has been for past transgressions.
``Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare, That seeming to be most which we indeed least are. `` Forward, I pray, since we have come so far, And be it moon, or sun, or what you please; And if you please to call it a rush-candle, 2280 Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.
the sun was the moon. And the moon changes even as your mind. What you will have it named, even that it is, And so it shall be so for Katherine.
