Taming of the Shrew the

Taming of the Shrew The Effect of the Frame and the Depiction of Women in the Taming of the Shrew: Unlikely Relationships. The Taming of the Shrew has long been one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, and with good reason. Not only is the usual beauty and wit of his language readily apparent throughout the play, but the characters Shakespeare has created are among the most memorable in all of dramatic literature.

The scene in which the crass and authoritative Petruchio "woos" the equally bossy and far more vicious Katherine (or "Kate," as only Petruchio dares call her) contains some of the most ribald and entertaining repartee in all of Shakespeare's works, as well as some of the best opportunities for physical comedy.

Indeed, throughout the play there is a great deal of high comedy both explicitly in the language of the plan and implicitly in the action, which a successful production of Taming of the Shrew can play on to great and risque effect. Despite the obvious enjoyment that audiences have derived form this play, however, there is also a great deal of controversy surrounding its plot and conclusions, especially in the modern era.

At the end of the play, Katherine has apparently become an obedient wife while her formerly demure sister has become somewhat shrewish in marriage, suggesting that "Bianca's sweet submissiveness is no more integral to her character than Kate's bas temper is to hers," but that the sisters can be both manipulative and malleable as circumstances and their men demand (Riverside 140). This is certainly one way to interpret the final scene of the play and its commentary on the rest of the action, but it is not the only one.

Shakespeare uses an interesting device to frame this play, and this must be taken into account when developing an understanding of the play's message as a whole. Before the main action begins, a drunk peasant named Christopher Sly appears onstage and passes out, whereupon he is taken in by a lord and, as a joke, set up to think he is in fact rich, and has been insanely dreaming of his life as a peasant.

The lord thinks it is a fantastic joke, but Sly's name and his easy acceptance of his new life -- "Upon my life, I am a lord indeed, / and not a tinker, nor Christopher Sly" -- suggest that he is simply willing to go along with frivolity as long as he can enjoy the ride (Riverside 145, Induction, lines 72-3).

This is further strengthened by his willingness to "let the world slip" while he settles in to watch a play, which of course forms the main action of the text (Riverside 145, Induction, 143). If a minor character such as Christopher Sly is able to dissemble so, we cannot expect any less of Katherine's abilities.

Her speech at the end of the play certainly does seem to show an extreme submissiveness towards her husband, and she quite explicitly tells other women to behave the same way, claiming (amongst other high-flying hyperbole) that "they are bound to serve, love, and obey" (Riverside 171, V.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). Though Pertuchio must.