I'm behind on the Shakespeare bit, due to some personal stuff going on last week combined with the fact that I have SO MUCH TO SAY about "Taming of the Shrew" and couldn't figure out how to condense it to a readable entry. So I'm going to try something a little different, and just put out the evidence first, and then my conclusions, in somewhat of a bullet-point fashion rather than essay format. Shall we begin? (There will be LOTS of caps lock.)
Point #1: The Christopher Sly frame story is just SO AWKWARD. The Lord literally has his page dress as a woman and pretend to be the drunken Sly's wife, the page GETS GROPED and has to giggle about it and fake being THRILLED about this, and the assumption is that after the play is over, they are going to BOWCHICKAWOWOW, but of course we never return to the frame narrative to see that nasty little business play out. What are we supposed to feel about this? The whole thing is just icky. I don't care that it's a joke on Sly. The page has no power in the situation and is forced to do his master's bidding in this.
Point #2: Lucentio falls in love with Bianca at first sight, but not only that, he literally FALLS IN LOVE WITH HER SILENCE. "...in the other's silence do I see / Maid's mild behavior and sobriety" (I.i.70-1). Not only that, he's so struck by her silent beauty that he fails to notice anything else going on in the scene. In fact, when Katherine DOES speak, he doesn't hear a word she says. "I saw her coral lips to move, / And with her breath she did perfume the air. / Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her" (I.i.174-6). So he falls in love with a woman specifically for her silence, and can't be bothered to hear a woman who DOES speak.
Point #3: Why are we just to accept that Katherine is a shrew, on the word of her father and Bianca's suitors? The evidence points to otherwise. She is in fact loud, demanding, and even violent, but at no point does she ever point her ire at anyone that hasn't earned it. She is angry at her father for clearly attempting to foist her off onto the greedy, grasping, elderly, and slimy suitors of Padua. When we see her strike Bianca (and perhaps she has Bianca tied up, though it's not actually in the stage directions, which means it might just be metaphorical,) she is interrogating her sister, and accuses her of lying. At this stage in the play it seems drastic and tyrannical, but we discover late in the play that Bianca actually IS lying and scheming, and that her submissive front is just that - a front. Later in the same scene, Katherine flies at her father: "Nay, now I see / She is your treasure, she must have a husband; / I must dance barefoot on her wedding-day, / And for your love to her lead apes in hell. / Talk not to me, I will go sit and weep" (II.i.31-4).
Point #4: Her father replies to this outburst by focusing on his own feelings, rather than the daughter he will force into an abusive marriage just to get her out of the way: "Was ever gentleman thus griev'd as I?" (II.i.37). Is man's grief over being inconvenienced worse than a woman's grief over being used as an object?
Point #5: Petruchio is a nasty bit of business. When we first meet him, he's beating his loyal servant. He's excited at the prospect of marrying a shrew - why? And when he first meets her, he pretends to misunderstand everything she says, or not hear her at all. He then proceeds to sexually assault her, and the audience is expected to find this funny and titillating. Ha ha. Look at the funny double entendre. Lots of productions love this bit, because they can make Kate seem attracted to Petruchio regardless of his boorishness and cruelty - "see, look? It's okay because she likes it!" But I can't think of a single woman I know who likes to be groped and have sexual remarks made to her on the first meeting. Not to mention he tells her that she's been sold into marriage to him.
Point #6: Kate breaks Hortensio's lute, and it is held up as evidence of her shrewishness. However, later we discover that he knows nothing about teaching music. Could it be that she just knew that and was angry at the deception and being treated like an idiot? Did she see through his ruse to get to Bianca?
Point #7: Baptista literally tries to sell his daughter Bianca to the highest bidder once Katherine is out of the way. Just, ick.
Point #8: Act III, scene i is literally just a bunch of men yelling at each other, acting, truly, like a bunch of shrews. Why are men allowed to yell and snipe at each other with impunity, but not women?
Point #9: Many scholars apologize for Petruchio's abuse of the servants and people around him by saying that it's meant to be an example to Kate, to embarrass her by showing her how her previous behavior appeared. However, Kate knows the difference. Kate's shrewishness was ALWAYS directed to those who abused their power over her, or made her life miserable, or attempted to deceive her. By contrast, Petruchio abuses those who are doing their best to please him, such as his servants, and Kate defends them: "Patience, I pray you, 'twas a fault unwilling" (IV.i.156, in response to Petruchio's striking of a servant bringing him water.)
Point #10: Act IV is just one giant trigger warning. Petruchio literally starves Kate, deprives her of sleep, and gaslights her in nearly every line. He forces her to say that it's night when it's day, and vice versa. And then he creates a genuine trauma bond by being the only person that can feed her or allow her to sleep. It's a nightmare of emotional abuse. He forces her to be grateful for the barest of necessities, and to thank him for them.
Point #11: Petruchio forces Kate to kiss him in the street, against her will, before he will allow her to see her family at Bianca's wedding.
Point #12: When the women leave the room at the wedding celebration, the men immediately begin describing them as animals: greyhounds, curs, deer, birds, horned beasts (referring to their sex drives.) It's "locker room talk," I guess.
Point #13: The women are played off of each other in a competition. Bianca is scornful, the widow (who I adore,) is honest but firm, and Kate...is broken.
I am grateful to the theatre professor in college who told me about a production he saw in which the play ended with Katherine very clearly destroyed in spirit, abused into obedience. He said it was the only version that ever made sense to him. I have to agree. I wonder if Shakespeare truly understood how close he came to depicting the truth of emotional abuse, and its cruelty. I wonder if the audiences of the time came away from the play roaring with laughter, if they went home and used these methods on their wives, or if the abrupt and uneasy exit of the actors at the end of the play was meant to drive home the problematic nature of the show. I don't have answers. I just don't want to read this play again, or risk seeing a production which depicts Petruchio in a positive light, or that implies that any woman needs to be tamed.
The next play is "Titus Andronicus," and for all its cannibalism, rape, and murder, is far less disturbing.
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