Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew"

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the role of women in Shakespeare's classic play; their reactions and coping abilities within the Elizabethan patriarchal society. Katharina is often looked upon as a threat to the system. She defies the expectations of society upon women and plays with masculine characteristics. In her defiance, she gains power. She discovers a power within her choices. To play along, or not to play along? Her realization of existing oppression is power in itself.

From the Paper:

"Elizabethans were attentive to the world's digression from the ideal order. Shakespearean comedy is farcical with a comic re evaluation of social norms. The ideal order consists of a hierarchical system in which everything and everyone has a fixed place. The family was to follow a corresponding order within the divine system. Tensions concerning Elizabethan faith in the order were heightened by the Puritan challenge to the established regime. The feisty and independent Katharina reflects the increasing threats to authority in society. Katharina inflates the attempt to re establish order within the familial system in Shakespeare's, "The Taming of the Shrew". Katharina communicates the notion that freedom is not absolute as she plays with accepted social restraints."

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