The Taming of
the Shrew
Act 5
‘I am asham’d that women are so simple’
CA Term 3: Essay Assignment
 How does Shakespeare use wit and humour
to present the relationships between men and
women?
 “Bianca and Lucentio are in fact seminal
characters, instrumental in understanding
Katherina and Petruchio.”
How successful is the sub-plot in affirming the
transformation of Katherina?
Plot and sub-plot
 Bianca must be seen, at first, as nothing but
the conventional heroine
 Sought by the typical romantic hero, Lucentio
 And in this capacity she is contrasted with
another type of female character
 Who is at first a much less attractive in terms
of character to the audience,
 that of her spirited sister, Katherina
Characterization as technique
 Shakespeare does not just contrast one sister with
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another;
He uses the younger Bianca as part of the
explanation of how the elder Katherina became a
shrew;
There is something psychologically real about the
scenes in which Katherina shows resentment
towards Bianca’s success with her “pretty” tricks;
‘So well I know my duty to my elders.’ [2.1]
And Baptista’s treatment of Bianca as his favourite,
younger, daughter, so noticeably different in words
and deed from the way he treats his elder daughter;
 Also the audience has the opportunity of seeing
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Bianca ‘in action’ with her suitors Lucentio as
Cambrio and Hortensio as Litio (in Act 3 Scene 1;
The speediness and suddenness of Lucentio’s
infatuation with Bianca, can be seen to be purely on
the strength of her beauty;
Bianca’s ‘dutiful’ behaviour, (also resented…)
It is a very self-possessed young lady who manages
both Lucentio and Hortensio to her own satisfaction,
insisting on her right to please herself about her
lessons [3.1]
And it ironically gives Lucentio encouragement that
she could not really have given, if she were not what
she appeared to be in earlier scenes;
Lucentio’s ultimate ‘reward’ in
Act 5 Scene 2?
 Bianca proves to be a wife who is not only
‘disobedient’ (to the extent of causing
Lucentio to lose the wager)
 She sharply rebukes him—
‘the more fool you for laying on my duty’
 A dramatic function of the sub-plot is to help
explain how Katherina has become a shrew.
 It serves also to make us (the audience)
more sympathetic with Kate by contrast.;
 On the level of story line of the play,
the sub-plot connects with the Katherina
main-plot when Bianca’s wooers show
support for the suit of Petruchio because of
their interest in having Katherina married off
first.
Concerns and Techniques
 Remember, any essay question on a
literature text will require you to examine
techniques in relation to concerns,
suitably adapted to the focus of the
requirements of the question.
 A play: dramatic techniques
 A novel: Narrative Techniques
 A Poem: Poetic techniques
 Concerns / Issues / Themes
Re Mid-Year Exam—
Markers’ comments
 Glossing for discussion;
 Deciphering the texts narrative
 Closely examining the use and effect of
dramatic language
 Some passing attempt at analysis;
 Some attempts at close analysis;
 Further elaboration / development;
 Thoroughly discusses Petruchio’s relationship
with K and implications, but does not FULLY
address the scope of the question
 Deborah Chan 30 / 50
 Focuses on discussing the play’s themes
through analysis of language;
plus insightful observations noted
 Points and quotes are haphazardly selected
and deployed, with no coherent overarching
argument
 Uses huge swathes of narration, description
and summary to no real purpose
 Literal reading;
 Reading literally;
 Literary analysis
Drama text: Top Girls
by Caryl Churchill
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Confirm?
All 1T02 students of H2 Literature?
12 copies (3 + 9)
All 1T03 students of H2 students?
Have your own personal copy of this text?
21 copies
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Ideally
You need one copy for study purposes
And a second copy for exam purposes
12 copies 3 + 9 extra second copies
Term 2 Who requires a second text?
 1) Reading and Studying Taming of the Shrew—
 Critically significant issues (e.g. The Battle of the
Sexes motif; verbal freedom through close reading
and analysis of critically significant speeches;
dialogue segments; and key scenes;
 2) Representation of women through a close study
and analysis of their Linguistic Representation;
 3) Structure of a text; recognizing its structure
 4) New set text: Top Girls by Caryl Churchill
 The play, The Taming of the Shrew, is
essentially a comedy and yet more serious
questions about gender issues overshadow
its comic features. Comment
 Remember to answer
 Your entry point must be through the
language of the text
 E.g. the choice and form of imagery
Analysis of essay question;
Breaking it down into its parts
 The play, The Taming of the Shrew, is
essentially a comedy
And yet
 More serious questions about
 gender issues
 overshadow its comic features.
Comment.
Introduction: Identify more serious
questions related to gender issues
 What are some of these more serious
questions about gender issues in the play?
 Such as what? A_? B_? C_? D_?
 The verbal silencing and hence curtailment of
women’s verbal freedom; silence as an ideal;
 State where, and show how these more
serious questions make themselves apparent
in the text of the play, and explain why?
 And how they overshadow its comic elements
Through the language;
e.g. Imagery of X? of the ‘Shrew’
 From Induction 1, the Lord’s instruction to First Player
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to go to Barthol’mew’s Page;
The Page will have to act the role of a woman,
‘With soft low tongue…’ [Induction 1.110]
‘Voice, gait, and action of a gentlewoman’ pg 6
‘Renowned in Padua for her scolding tongue’ pg 26
I know she is an irksome, brawling scold’ pg 29
‘No mates for you / Unless you were of gentler,
milder mould.’ [Hortensio to Kate] pg 16
Tranio: ‘But in the other’s silence do I see
Maid’s mild behaviour and sobriety 1.1.70-71 pg 17
Narrative Structure:
A text is a web of meaning
 How a text is connected, built up; ordered;
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sequenced;
Structure of a sentence
Structure of a speech in the play,
The
Taming of the Shrew
The structure of a scene? Of an Act? Of the play as a
whole?
Structure of a paragraph in a novel?
Structure of a narrative prose passage;
How paragraphs are in sequenced on the page?
The structure of Hardy’s Tess? Its seven phases?
Unseen Prose Question
 Comment closely on the following passage
from the novel Alias Grace (1996) by
Canadian writer Margaret Atwood.
 Analytically discuss the ways in which
it presents the character of Grace Marks,
(a woman working as a domestic servant
maid with a criminal past,)
 And relate it more generally to your reading
on the theme of women in literature
How writers choose to represent
character through speech & description
 Character is the most important single
component of the novel;
 Representation; Role; Relationship;
 Difficult to discuss in technical terms;
 So many different types of character, and so
many ways of linguistically representing
them
 Flat characters; round characters;
 Characters rendered from inside their minds
 Characters viewed from the outside by others
 Simplest way / method for a character to be
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introduced is by physical description and description
of psychological attributes, and
biographical summary;
Description is highly selective; synecdoche—its basic
technique: letting the part stand for the whole
Modern novelists prefer to let the facts about a
character emerge gradually; gradual emergence
The Static Pose; as if sitting for a verbal portrait
The scenic method;
Direct speech; character conveyed by speech;
Dramatic action; character shown in action;
And note Gender of the narrator
 Point of view? E.g. First person point of view
 Clothing is always a useful index of character, social class, and
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life-style;
Naming; Nomenclature
Speech past tense / present tense?
Interior
monologue;
Voice? The feelings and attitudes of the narrator can be
detected through the tone of the voice adopted:
Formal? Confident? Opinionated? Cynical?
And behaviour;
Imagery; Symbolism
Time; Setting
Nuances that are purely literary such as the use of various forms
of irony to be found in fictional prose
Representation
 How do fiction writers construct the world in the
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language of their texts? i.e. Linguistic representation?
Some writers conform to mainstream conventions of
representation, for example of women,
thus contributing to the reification of these
conventions—
i.e. the mainstream conventions come to be seen as
the only natural ones, the common sense way of
representing women, or representing the world.
Others, especially avant-garde writers, break through
these conventions in an attempt to denaturalize them.
Thoughts on Comedy from Hardy
 Hardy made a case for his insistence on ‘the
tragical conditions of life’ in a letter to his
friend, John Addington Symonds, poet and
critic, written while working on his novel,
Tess of the D’Urbervilles.
 ‘All comedy, is tragedy,
if you only look deep enough into it.’
On the nature of Dramatic Comedy
 Whatever happens along the way in a
dramatic comedy
 The ending will offer an image of happiness
 For at least some of the characters whose fortunes
we have followed.
 If for others there is sadness and exclusion,
that is a reminder that comedy’s optimism is an
artificial and selective view of the world. (NOTE!)
 Comedies can provide meaningful stories,
 as well as opportunities for laughter and relaxation
Act 5 Scene 1
 What do we need to recall to understand and
appreciate scene 1 of Act 5?
 Events in Act 4, Scene 2 (pgs 79, 80)
 That of a Merchant of Mantua, an old man
 Asked by Tranio (posing as Lucentio) to
pretend to be his father, Sir Vincentio:
 ‘His name and credit shall you undertake,
And in my house you shall be friendly lodg’d.
Look that you take upon you as you should—
You understand me, sir?’
4.2.106-9
We note the constant presence of
unromantic detail throughout the play
 Tranio (as Lucentio) to the Merchant:
 ‘Then go with me to make the matter good.
This, by the way, I let you understand:
My
father is here look’d for every day
To
pass assurance of a dower in marriage
’Twixt me and one Baptista’s daughter here.
In all these circumstances I’ll instruct you.
Go with me to clothe you as becomes you.’
4.2.114-120
See how they kiss and court 4.2.27
 Hortensio as Litio, and Tranio as Lucentio have
already given up their quest for Bianca’s hand when
they discover Lucentio as Cambio kissing her; ‘See
how they kiss and court!’
 Hortensio thus by Act 4 scene 2 decides instead to
marry a wealthy, ‘lusty’ widow;
 By scene 4 of Act 4, we learn that Lucentio has been
told by Biondello a church and priest has been
arranged so that he may elope with Bianca;
 By scene 5, we learn the real Vincentio is on his way
to Padua to check up on his son
The battle appears to be now over
 While Lucentio and Bianca go to church to get
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married, the real Vincentio arrives at his lodgings;
The real Vincentio is confused about what’s going on
because Lucentio’s servants swear they have never
seen him before;
Vincentio is then rescued by the real Lucentio who
shocks everyone with the news he is married;
Everyone but Petruchio and Kate head to Baptista’s
house to sort matters out;
Petruchio demands a kiss from Kate; she grants his
request; the battle appears now to be over
No shame but mine. / To give my hand
/ Unto a mad-brain rudesby
 Lucentio enters this scene as himself;
 The timing of the unmasking of Lucentio as Cambio,
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along with the other characters in the sub-plot, Tranio
as Lucentio, the Merchant as Vincentio
This is critically significant. Why?
For Katherina too has been transformed;
As becomes evident in the Sun and Moon Scene,
scene 5 of Act 4; test of obedience
This means Petruchio can now do away with his
put on persona, his own disguise or mask as
‘a mad-brain rudesby’ (a lout)
3.2.10
Lucentio unmasked
Lucentio:
 ‘Here’s Lucentio,
Right son to the right Vincentio,
That have by marriage made thy daughter
mine
While counterfeit supposes blear’d thine
eyne.
 Baptista: Why, tell me, is not this my
Cambio?
 Bianca: Cambio is chang’d into Lucentio’
Petruchio unmasks—
no longer a mad-brain rudesby?
 Now Petruchio at this point insists on Kate
kissing him in public:
 ‘First kiss me, Kate…’
 ‘What in the midst of the street?’
 ‘Nay, I will kiss thee a kiss.’
< She kisses him >
Now pray thee, love, stay.’ (thee, not ‘you’)
Had the play ended at Scene 1?
 Had the play ended at this point?
 This would have served as a nice romantic ending for
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a genuine romantic comedy
Evidence? Given this mutually agreed kiss;
Yet against that it can be said the kiss is in
accordance with Petruchio’s plan, and it can be
played with different nuances of meaning;
Petruchio insists on her kissing him in public, which
can be seen as an unbecoming show of affection or
desire, and when she does give in
In a triumphant tone, he declares ‘Is not this well?’
Act 5 Scene 2 The Wedding Feast;
Lecture Part 2
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Joyous celebration of a triple wedding
A public ceremony marking return to order;
Restoration of Order
Hortensio’s ‘lusty widow’ suggests that Petruchio is
‘troubled with a shrew’ as a wife;
 Katherina retaliates in a way that shows her spirit has
not been broken, but they are encouraged to
withdraw by Bianca;
 Once the women have departed, the male characters
discuss their wives, using hunting imagery once
again; Tranio suggests that Petruchio’s ‘deer’ holds
him at bay;
 At which point, Petruchio proposes a wager
But it does not stop there! + Scene 2
 To Act 5, a Scene 2 The Wedding Feast is added;
 Shakespeare adds this extraordinary and
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controversial final scene
In which Katherina is asked to publicly demonstrate
her ‘taming’ through Petruchio’s initiated wager;
There is a final reminder of her humiliation:
And another wager: She has to take off her cap and
throw it underfoot when Petruchio commands her to;
Then there is her speech of instruction to those
women who remain ‘shrews’
Wagers on Wives;
Tame; Teach; Test; and final test;
 In this final scene the men engage in a wager
 They bet on their wives’ obedience to their
husbands
 And who wins?
 Petruchio
 As Katherina proves to be the most obedient;
 She has been finally successfully tamed;
 Or so it looks / appears to Petruchio;
 Appearance and Reality; and audience?
Reminder!
Reading Drama
 From page to stage
 Visualize the text in performance
 Think again about how you will see the play
on stage; at each stage of its plot
development
 How will we see the characters?
In word and deed; dialogue and action;
 Listening for meaning;
 How will we hear them?
 How will they sound—voice, rhythm, tone;
Rival Interpretations
 This last scene marks the climax of the play’s
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exploration of the theme of love and marriage
It is a scene that has given rise to more differences of
interpretation than any other part of the play;
Last scene subjected to many critical disputes;
Many drama teachers, critics and stage directors
have sought to interpret this scene as ironic
Making its suggested deeper meaning
(implicit rejection of the way Katherina is treated)
much more significant
Than its surface meaning
(women must learn to obey men no matter what)
What a metamorphosis! (Change!)
 This may stem from a refusal to admit that
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Shakespeare could write a play as sexist as this
appears to be;
There is Katherina’s most lengthy set speech,
44 lines, her ‘obedience’ speech
Meant to be a final statement on the subject of
love and marriage
justifying patriarchy, (now an agent of patriarchy)
Arguing rhetorically that it is the best guarantee of
marital happiness;
Restoration of the Natural Order of
Things as decreed by God and Nature;
 The speech begins with Katherina rebuking the
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Widow for her scornful glances designed
‘To
wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor.’
This establishes the basis of degree in her argument,
that of status in the ‘the great chain of being’
(the World View of the play’s play-world)
The hierarchical order of all things natural and
supernatural, decreed by God, Lord of Creation;
the rung of this chain on which a wife stands one step
lower than her husband
‘Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway…’
Restoration of order ensures harmony
 Katherina states her wife-husband
relationship in a very clear manner:
 ‘Such duty as the subject owes the prince
Even such a woman oweth to her husband.’
 In the Great Chain of Being—
 The wife is a vassal to her husband,
the husband is vassal to the prince, the
prince is vassal to God, Lord of all Creation;
 This is the natural hierarchical order of the
great chain of being; from the high to the low;
Noting the ending of the speech
 And ending with such a strong visual image
of submission; (a built-in stage direction):
 ‘Then veil your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your
husband’s foot.
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready, may it do him ease.’
5.2.175-9
Thinking about Katherina’s 5.2 speech
theatrically; Interpretative Analysis
 Some actresses acting as Katherina
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speak out Katherina’s lines with heavy irony
In a tone of hyperbolical submissiveness
In the belief that her speech is not intended to be
taken at face value;
That it is full of hyperbole;
Ironic exaggeration, overstatement, for the sake of
dramatic effect to convey a seeming show of
submission and subservience;
A knowing pretense at conformity; (said with a wink);
Other actresses of this role act out this speech with a
sort of brainwashed fervour. (What do you think?)
Yale Shakespeare scholar,
Harold Bloom;
 For Harold Bloom, one would have to be very
literal-minded and mentally myopic not to
notice
 the delicious irony that is Kate’s undersong,
centred on that great line—
 “I am asham’d that women are so simple”
 For Bloom, it requires a very good actress to
deliver this line, and set piece properly;
 For Kate is really advising women how to rule
absolutely, while feigning obedience.
Views complimenting this view;
And connecting back to Sly
 The point is that the play itself does not invite us to
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take seriously Petruchio’s actions
or Kate’s submission in her acceptance speech;
That the play is Sly’s fantasy of male wish-fulfillment
That we as an audience are thus free to see it / hear
it as a demonstration that the gender roles played by
women and men in society are in fact socially
‘constructed’
And therefore do not form part of their essential
natures; (it is not fixed in their nature);
Also, the comic swapping of identities among the
other characters in the sub-plot, also underlines the
idea that all of what we see on stage is role-play
Further making connections
 As a result, Katherina’s submission is very
much an imaginary resolution of the conflict
with her husband; it is not meant for real;
 Her final speech holds up conventional
reasons for male supremacy as fictions
 That are no more to be believed than the
reality of Tranio or Lucentio’s
characterization, whether as themselves or
someone else; such as Lucentio as Cambio;
American feminist critic,
Karen Newman
 Has argued that to show gender relations on stage
as ‘natural’ in a fantasy play such as
The Taming of the Shrew
 Is to reveal the artificiality of male-female relations
by exposing their contradictions;
 Newman sees Katherina’s behaviour, right up to the
end of the play, as a refusal to be categorized and
controlled by the power structures by which men
subordinate women (such as Marriage);
 That Katherina refuses either to be silent or to submit
herself as a passive public object for the male gaze.
 For Newman, Katherina takes on male
language and undermines it in two ways
 1) The first is Katherina’s riddling wordplay
(punning) with Petruchio, through which she
refuses to accept that he has a right to decide
on the meaning of his own words;
 Katherina’s punning exposes marriage as an
unequal sexual exchange in which women
are exploited to produce offspring for men
with no benefits such as respect for
themselves;
Critic, Karen Newman
 Throughout the trials of her wedding day and night,
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Katherina insists on her right to be heard [3.2.207-21;
4.3.73-80]
Petruchio deliberately mishears her, distorting what
she says to suit his meaning;
Female speech is associated with female
independence—thus it is not to be listened to.
The only language available to Katherina in her final
speech for public statement is male;
As a woman capable of ‘miming’ the male role to
such effect, she exposes its contradictions.
So she has not in the end being silenced.
Karen Newman
 The genre of comedy requires
a ‘happy’ union;
 It is this speech to which the entire plot has
been leading;
But note:
 it is not Petruchio who speaks it;
 So if Katherina is really at this point tamed,
 how is it she holds the stage at the end—
 UNSILENCED?
What of Kate in relation to
Bianca and the Widow in 5.2?
 The internal logic of the play’s comic progression demands
 That the final scene, the tamed shrew shall be shown to be
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more tame than both the seemingly meek sister, Bianca, and the
worldly-wise Widow;
And this is complimented by the tone of the husbands which is
also playing up the farcical dimension—
As when we note the manner of speech they use to urge their
wives’ participation in the wager, testing their obedience—
‘To her, Kate!’ ‘To her, widow!’
We can see / hear they are being urged on like as if they were
animals;
Were it a more serious play…final scene ? ? ?
Connecting the three segments
 The theme of the Induction?
 is also to be found in both the main plot and
sub-plot
 All three segments of the play
(Induction / Main Plot / and Sub-Plot)
 are thematically inter-connected
 Because?
 Each segment contains a discussion of—
the relations of the sexes in marriage
The Induction
Lord, in Induction scene 1
 With soft low tongue and lowly courtesy,
And say, ‘What is’t your honour will command
Wherein your lady and your humble wife
May show her duty and make known her love?
And with declining head into his bosom
Voice, gait, and action of a gentlewoman.
Bartholomew in Induction scene 2
 My husband and my lord, my lord and my husband,
I am your wife in all obedience.
Katherina in 5.2
 Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign;
 And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks, and true obedience
 Is it possible Shakespeare intended these
lines to be spoken ironically?
 Echoing the words of Bartholomew in the
Induction—
 ‘I am your wife in all obedience’
For this opinion was further supported
by Holy Writ
 Wives,
submit yourselves unto your husbands,
as unto the Lord.
For, the husband is the head of the wife, even as
Christ is the head of church.
 Ephesians 5: 22-25
 Derives its final authority from the New Testament
 So Katherina also uses in her acceptance speech the
rhetorical technique of authoritative testimony,
through the subtle echoic allusion to holy scripture,
for the benefit of the other wives at the wedding feast,
to further emphasize and reinforce the secondary
position of the woman in marriage.
Katherina’s acceptance speech 5.2
 All communication, spoken / written has an
audience, actual or assumed;
 Who is Katherina’s audience, given the text of
her speech, in its dramatic context?
 Purpose?
 Purpose? Intention? of the text of Katherina’s
speech in its dramatic context?
 Rhetorical;
 It aims / has as its objective to convince /
persuade her sceptical audience
 Organizational Structure of her speech;
Key stages;
 Identify rhetorical devices / techniques used
in her speech?
 Imagery?
 Choice, and form of imagery, and rhetorical
function
 And dramatic effects
 First reprimands the wives for their facial
gestures of resentment and skepticism;
 Wounding thy husband will take from your
beauty;
 The husband is your minder; and undergoes
great sacrifices of dangerous and painful
labour; thus the wife has a debt of duty which
she can pay by showing wifely appreciation
and obedience;
Not to do so amounts to betrayal (treason)
Another reason
 Keep in mind, your bodies are softer and
weaker than men, and therefore cannot work
and deal with danger (toil and trouble); men
are the stronger and braver sex;
 And women’s internal gentler disposition
should therefore externally conform
The Sly Induction again;
re- the framing / enclosing technique
 There are those who argue
 Sly’s attitude to the play within the play
 Is crucial to the attitude of the audience in the
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theatre
The Sly Induction does not so much announce the
theme of the main plot and sub-plot
But establishes their tone;
To encourage the audience to take what they see as
a load of dramatic farce; (not to be taken seriously)
Sly’s attitude to the play: ’Tis a very excellent piece of
work, madam lady. Would ’twere done!’ 1.2.249-250
A word on Imagery
 Kate as a wild cat
 Kate as nice cake (puns on her name)
 The mood becomes cheerful when Lucentio calls on
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the guests to ‘chat as well as eat’
It is intended the feast will ‘close our stomachs up /
After our great good cheer’
These lines subtextually imply what?
That the conflict is now over; Why? How so?
Because Katherina (her name as Kate is the basis for
many puns (Kate as in ‘cake’) is now tamed
being now palatable;
Imagery, and who is the real Shrew?
 While the natural order that is sought and restored
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as is suggested in the imagery of Katherina’s speech
This order has been subverted in the other two
marriages
Notice how Bianca responds to Petruchio:
‘Am I your bird? I mean to shift my bush, / And then
pursue me as you draw your bow.’ (Hunting imagery)
Subtext?
That Petruchio may have tamed his ‘bird’, but Bianca
ironically is still free to ‘shift’ her ‘bush’ and act in
whatever she likes;
Oxford literary critic, Laurie Maguire
 Part of the intellectual attraction of this play is that its
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misogyny is open to debate
In her long dutiful speech Katherina may be playing
Petruchio at his own game, OR
She may be completely extinguished, robotically
reciting the patriarchal line;
As a literary critic, I can see many ways of
interpreting this play about wife taming;
But as a woman, I cannot find the subjugation of a
wife fit matter for comic treatment.
Robot women?
Fembots
Coined by American feminist, Mary Daly
 Some actresses acting the part of Katherina
recite her submissive speech like a Stepford
wife (as in the film version of Ira Levin’s
novel, The Stepford Wives), in which men in
an American small town kill and replace their
wives with robotic copies who act like every
man’s dream of the “perfect” wife.
George Meredith's test of a true
comedy (from his Essay On Comedy)
 The test of true comedy is that it awakens
 Thoughtful laughter
 Applying this test to
The Taming of the Shrew?
 The play probably does qualify as true
comedy in that sense
 but, only just
 Does The Taming of the Shrew as a dramatic
comedy awaken thoughtful laughter in you?