Chris on Katherine's Speech

Katherine’s Speech  5.2  (Chris Kraner)

There are essentially two ways to interpret Katherine’s speech in act 5 scene 2 of The Taming of the Shrew. The first is that she has been changed or “tamed” by Petruchio’s harsh treatment, the second is that she is being sarcastic and Petruchio is too dumb to see through her language. Although I think the second would make for a much better play today, I think that Shakespeare meant for Katherine’s speech to be taken literally. It is important to consider Shakespeare’s original audience.  The Taming of the Shrew was written between 1590 and 1593. These were horrible times for women. Misogyny was a rampant part of everyday culture. As a playwright Shakespeare wrote to live and if his plays didn’t sell he would starve. So, it makes sense for Shakespeare to write a play that by today’s standards is horribly anti-woman. Viewers of the play would have not only hated Katherine for being a “shrew” they would have hated her for being educated and intelligent. Petruchio would have been seen as a hero in the 1590’s for “taming” (abusing) Katherine. As Professor Stapleton has said in class, women didn’t agree or like the harsh treatment they received. I would also like to theorize that she behaved so monstrously to scare men away so as to avoid the horrors of medieval marriage.

As a modern viewer it is hard to perceive that such horrible treatment of women was so commonplace. I personally think that a modern adaptation of the play in which Petruchio sets out to “tame” Katherine, but ends up getting tamed by Katherine would be hilarious. The adaptation we are watching in class sort of paints Petruchio as a dunce already and I am eager to see how it deals with Katherine’s speech. People in relationships still “tame” each other. But now it is less abusive (in most cases) and constructive.

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