Taming Of The Shrew And Petruchio's

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Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew is a comedic play that centres on the gender and class inequalities of the Elizabethan Era. To highlight these inequalities, the play depicts the volatile relationship between the two central characters- Katherina and Petruchio. Modern transformations of this infamous text, particularly the film versions created in 1999 and 1967, have enabled contemporary viewers to access these overt messages of masculinity and feminity and to contextualise the events described by the bard in 1593. Yet, as a viewer, I found some of the deviations from the original play detracted from my perception of Shakespeare’s intent. Therefore, this presentation will attempt to expose the hidden messages underpinning the two film …show more content…
The play Taming of the Shrew, is set in a fictional society of Padua, Italy, which represents the Elizabethan society, in which Shakespeare lived. We perceive the Elizabethan society to be a patriarchal, hierarchal society. However, it is debatable whether Shakespeare disapproved and therefore challenged his society’s values, or if he was just reflecting them in a somewhat satirical way for the purposes of …show more content…
He continues to pursue her despite her obvious objections- even going so far as to state that he would “put his tongue in her tail” which denotes an inherent lack of respect for Katherina and women in general. His constant comparison of Katherina and others in the play with despised animals is an additional example of the lack of respect and empathy he has for those around him. Furthermore, through other examples in the text, such as Petruchio’s beating of his servants. He is depicted as a brute who has little respect for those around him. Whilst the viewer is encouraged to view this as funny, owing to the contexts in which the text was supposed to be interpreted, I did not find this to be the case, perhaps because of the social and cultural disparity existential between the text and
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