The Taming of the Shrew, Dreddrick Brown

When I first began to read The Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare, it was quite difficult for me to comprehend fully. I figured out that the beginning marks the play to be a play within a play which would give way to shear comedy right from the start.

Throughout history, a younger daughter seems to be the child that is most protected in any household, and in The Taming of the Shrew, it is no different. Bianca is not able to wed until her older sister, Katherina, has found a husband. However, anybody that were to get involved with Katherina would be sure to know that their relationship is not a "match made from heaven". Katherin is infact that quarrelsome shrew that Petrucio, the man that will become her husband, will have to tame. And to tame Katherina, Petrucio treats her as if she is a falcon which is quite clever of Shakespeare. We all are aware that falcon's are powerful birds that feed on prey and in a blink of an eye will come hurdling down to earth in order to have meal. This is exactly how Katherina is, except instead of being a carnivore and eating her prey, Katherina's mouth is the only thing that her "prey", the men around her, should be afraid of. And this is why Petrucio would have to take up the task of taming the shrew.

I was not heavily confused with the play until names began to switch and roles began to change within th characters just to woo the beautiful Bianca. Lucentio would become Biancas husband, however, for a vast majority of the play he would be impersonating Tranio which represents a timeless theme that has been accepted and repeated for decades. It is quite simple, love will make a person do strange and crazy things, and this is exactly what love did for Lucentio.

However, there was one major question that I could not quite figure out, did Shakespeare really feel that this was a woman's role within society?, or did he just write this for comedic purposes? At the end of the play, Katherina makes a moving speech saying that woman should respect their husbands and answer every one of their needs because a woman's husband is practically their lord. The treatment of Katherina honestly made the play more interesting, however, it was quite bizarre. And I understand fully why many people would think that the play was overwhelming and disturbing because of Petrucio's treatment to Katherina. It is quite ironic that at the end of the play, Bianca and the widow became the new "shrews" because they did not obey their husbands like Katherina. They represented independent woman, which is particular because that type of writing would be seen more in today's society.

In all, Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew was entertaining and an enjoyable read. I feel that the play would be more comedic if at the end, the Lord and man who has began to believe he was lord were to come back and see that it was all a setup. The play in all was a strange love story that ended with a shrew being tamed.