The Taming of the Shrew

This play is one of shakespeare's comedies that I actally did enjoy reading. I have always dreaded reading his works but I actually found this one to be funny and not as difficult to understand. In this play, or should I say the play within the play, there are two sisters looking to be married. The older sister, Katherina, (aka "the shrew") is the daughter who no one wants to marry. On the contrary, her younger sister Bianca is the daughter whom all the men seem to fall in love with. Their father, Baptista Minola, refuses to let Bianca marry before her older sister. Once Petruchio agrees to wed Katherina, Bianca bacomes available and Lucentio, Hortensio, and Gremio all fight over her. Here is where the play becomes tricky and hard to follow; many of the characters disguise themselves and it is hard to keep track of who is who. Eventually, Lucentio marries Bianca. At the end of the play, Petuchio demonstrates just how successful he was at taming his wife, the shrew. He had Katerina so willing to do as he said that when the two of them crossed paths with an older gentleman, he had her convined that he was a young girl stricktly because he had told her so. Although I found the play entertaining, I do resent the fact that women are merely here to do as their husbands command and the men are not expected to return the favor. I also wish that the characters from the opening act had made a second appearance at the end of the play.