Lecture 4 The Taming of the Shrew

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Lecture 4 The Taming of the Shrew

• Act 1, Scene 2

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Lecture Focus

• Sources of Conflict in Drama, Women in
  Literature, and Shrew
• Additional background critical considerations in
  relation to Act 1, and Plot
• Highlights of Act 1, Scene 2,
• Dramatic presentation of character
• The threefold Structure Induction Main Plot
  and Sub-Plot
• Dramatic Techniques
• Dramatic Effects
• Theme of Appearance and Reality

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Think of sources of Conflict?

• Money property
• Women, especially young, beautiful women
• Love eros romance sexual desire
• Other men especially men of wealth, power, and
  influence ambition competition
• Masculine Power, and power disputes
• Male-Female rivalry The battle of the sexes and
  how women contest male power, domination and
  control Paper 5 Concerns
• Conflict arising from ourselves inner conflict
• Conflict between Appearance and Reality Disguise
  

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Women in Literature / Drama

• How female experience is portrayed in Literature?
  Dramatized in Drama?
• How is female experience portrayed in
  Shakespeare? More particularly in Shrew?
• Was Shakespeare a chauvinist? Sexist?
• Shakespeare put language into the mouths of many
  of his male characters that nowadays appears
  sexist, given its uncomplimentary references to
  women

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Consider Petruchios chattel speech

• Petruchio speaks of his wife, Kate
• She is my goods, my chattels she is my house,
• My house-hold stuff, my field, my barn,
• My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything. Act 3, Sc
  2
• Students need to balance such evidence against
  Shakespeares portrayal of his female characters
• Explore different ways of speaking Petruchios
  lines
• Critically consider how serious is he? Or is it
  all intended not to be taken seriously? As a
  joke?
• Is this one of Petruchios disguises?

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What of other women characters in Shakespeare?

• Shakespeares plays are filled with resourceful,
  self-confident women
• Who create their own space, and achieve or
  represent a spirited independence
• Lady Macbeth, Gonerill and Regan Cleopatra
  Beatrice and Katherina
• Some feminist literary critics interpret his
  plays as sympathetic to feminism
• Others see Shakespeare as supportive of
  patriarchy. (Through reasoned argument)

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Patriarchy, Eros and Sexuality

• Just as sexuality has always been constituted
  within the parameters of a male bodily order
• So the feminine and eros have been constituted
  within a masculine economy of pleasure and power
• A culture where men govern the nature of all
  erotic, amorous, and sexual experience
• Consider these perspectives in relation to your
  Paper 5 concerns in your set texts.

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• Many of Shakespeares plays concern themselves
  with the nature of women, their position / place
  in society and their treatment
• In The Taming of the Shrew, Katherina has to be
  taught obedience before she can be deemed
  suitable to become a wife in marriage.
• Marriage is seen as the foundation of a happy and
  orderly life.

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Bianca Katherina

• Gentle
• Good
• Sweet
• Obedient
• Respectful
• Silent mild
• Beauteous modesty

• Rough
• Impatient
• Disobedient
• Bad-tempered
• Rebellious
• Violent
• Scolding tongue

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Recalling Kates first speech Sc 1

• It is vulgar, and thick-sown with proverbs
• She threatens to comb her suitors noddles
  with a three-legged stool
• It is all very scolding and violent
• And appropriately expressed in a low style (as
  opposed to a high style)
• Her choice and form of more vulgar language
  reinforces this shrewish impression of her
  character

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Exposition (Delay and Integration)

• The title creates an expectation of conflict
  between a man and his wife
• Induction presents us immediately with a dispute
  between the Hostess and a Beggar (Tinker)
• Followed by a long episode in which a Lord and
  his train plan to deceive the sleeping Beggar
  that he too is a lord
• This is interrupted by the arrival of the actors,
  after which the Lords plot is seen in operation,
• With Sly deceived for over a hundred lines until
  the actors come to perform their comedy

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• The play-within-the-play then begins with the
  sub-plot
• with Lucentio, along with his servant Tranio,
  arriving in Padua to pursue a course of study
• and then meeting Baptista, his daughters and
  their suitors
• Up to this point in the play there has been no
  hint of a shrew

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Main Plot and Sub-Plot

• At Act 1, Scene 1, 48
• The main plot and sub-plot are linked by
  Baptistas initial announcement
• Gentlemen, importune me no further,
  
• For how I firmly am resolvd you know
• That is, not to bestow my youngest daughter
• Before I have a husband for the elder.

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• It is from this decision of Baptista that all the
  intrigue of the sub-plot flows with Hortensio,
  Lucentio and Gremio, pursuing their various
  schemes to win over Bianca
• The contest for Bianca is also a parallel to and
  a reversal of the contest between Petruchio and
  Katherina
• In both plots, courtship is seen as a struggle, a
  conflict
• Shakespeare signals this by the way in which
  after Act 1, Scene 1, the plots interweave.
• The two plots are reversals of each other.

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Moving on to Scene 2 of Act 1

• Petruchio comes to Padua in search of a rich
  wife
• He is introduced in a low comedy style with his
  servant, Grumio
• With great flourish, he proclaims his intention
  to marry for money (Marriage as a market)
• He agrees to court Katherina
• Action initially takes place outside Hortensios
  house

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Lazzi, and Dramatic, Comic Effects

• Petruchio is introduced in a low comedy turn with
  his servant Grumio
• Commedia depended for most of its comic
  effects on gags known as lazzi, largely surplus
  to the actual plot
• In this scene, there is the classic Knock me
  here gag, which depends on Grumio not
  understanding a clear instruction he must
  realistically have heard many times before

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• The upshot of this failure of understanding on
  Grumios part
• The stage direction directing Petruchio
  lt He wrings him by
  the ears gt
• Once again the servant is abused
• Does this action have thematic relevance?
• It signals to the audience Petruchios potential
  for physical violence
• NOTE Actors and directors have to choose how
  comically these scenes are performed

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Plot Contrast in Characterization

• Lucentios rapturous passion in Act 1, Scene 1 is
  contrasted not only with Petruchios realistic
  and pragmatic declaration
• I come to wive it wealthily in Padua
• Watch out for these contrasts re- both plots
• As they comment ironically on each other
• Critically explore direct comparisons and
  contrasts between Petruchio and Lucentio as the
  principal wooers

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• Petruchio is superficially direct, simple,
  overbearing, and businesslike
  Do you agree?
• Lucentio is lovesick, yet devious Yes or No?
  Why say he is devious?
  Any supporting textual evidence?
• Recall he employs Tranio to adopt a disguise in
  order to do all his real work for him

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Petruchio lines 62-73 Effects?

• Signor Hortensio, twixt such friends as we
• Few words suffice, and therefore, if thou know
• One rich enough to be Petruchios wife
• As wealth is burden of my wooing dance
• Be she as foul as was Florentius love,
• As old as Sibyl, and as curst and shrewd
• As Socrates Xanthippe or a worse,
• She moves me not, or not removes at least
• Affections edge in me, were she as rough
• As are the swelling Adriatic seas.
• I come to wive it wealthily in Padua
• If wealthily, then happily in Padua.

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Dramatic Techniques?

• Modulation of stress patterning to produce
  particular effects
• Altering line length, and inserting pauses
• Interplay between lines, and sentences
• Enjambment, and End-stopping
• Rhetorical figures of speech (techniques of
  persuasive language)
• E.g. Anaphora and Hyperbole
• Metaphorical techniques Imagery

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Effects? Show how they are achieved?

• Conveys a sense that he an invincible,
  unstoppable force nothing stands in his way No
  nonsense
• A man to be reckoned with we are impressed
• A typical audience will react with amused
  admiration for his egotistic, bravado, macho
  spirit and energy
• Comic effects arise from the inflated and
  exaggerated rhetoric (very masculine, muscular
  discourse)
• It will arouse suspense as the audience awaits in
  eager anticipation of an encounter between the so
  called Shrew of Padua, and this newcomer,
  Petruchio

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For further dramatic effects

• Compare and contrast characterization and events
  in the sub-plot with that of main plot
• Contrast Petruchios speech with Lucentio earlier
  on in Scene 1 of Act 1
• I burn, I pine, I perish/ Counsel me, Tranio /
  Assist me, Tranio
• Note the dependence on his servant!

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Effects arising from the Induction

• In the Induction, there are portrayals of a Lord
  and his huntsmen First Huntsman and Second
  Huntsman, and references to aspects and elements
  of hunting,
• Dost thou love hawking? / Or wilt thou hunt? /
• Say thou will course, thy greyhounds
• There is a sense in Petruchios speech of the
  metaphor of the hunt of hunting
  Petruchio as a fortune-hunter

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Towards end of Act 1, Scene 2

• By the end of this scene Petruchio is already
  thinking and talking about Katherina as if she
  were his possession already
• Sir, sir, the first is for me let her go
  by.
• Effect? (dramatic / theatrical)
• We can see how determined and decisive he is in
  his pursuit in his fortune-hunting!

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Conflict Appearances and Reality

• The Induction compels us to question the
  boundaries between appearance and reality So
  whats real?
• Thus warning the audience of the ambiguity of
  belief
• And in doing so, it foreshadows the use of
  disguises and performances in the sub-plot, and
  main plot
• Creating much dramatic irony in the play
• But does Petruchio disguise himself?
• Is he not more upfront, more direct about his
  motives and intentions, even with Kate?
• But then is not Petruchio an actor? Does he not
  set out to act and play different parts, adopting
  different personas? Is he not putting on a false
  front?
• So how is Kate to gauge him? And the audience?