The Construction of Femininity In Taming of The Shrew

The Construction of Femininity

In Taming of The Shrew

In Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare tells the story of two sisters with conflicting personalities representing constructions of femininity. I will be looking at the different constructions of femininity throughout the play and the different ways a female can be constructed through illusion.

At the start of the play, a tinker called Sly has a trick played upon him. The trick is a trick of illusion, making him believe he is a lord. He is told he has a mock wife. However, The fact that his ‘wife’ is the ultimate deception being a boy. Shakespeare constructs the text so that you can guess that it is a boy dressed as a girl from the comments he makes about the suggestive remarks that Sly makes to Page. Sly’s wife is illusory as is our communes of the two women. This is also a hint of what they might be seeing in the play that follows, is also in illusory. The play could be seen as Shakespeare discussing what really constitutes femininity and what is illusory.

Katherine and Bianca in the main play eventually appear to be deceptive as well as the “Wife” Sly story. The story constructs the appearances of both women through the men’s words, giving you a idea of how both women are seen through men’s eyes. The descriptions show the extent of how both women are locked into their identity that has been constructed for them, for example, Act 1 Scene 2; the conversation with Hortensio and Petruchio is discussing the two sisters.

‘And wish thee a shrewd ill-favored wife?

Thou’d thank me but a little’

Hortensio believes that Katherine is not suitable for his friend. Petruchio believes that none is ever bad, they are always unbind from the spell, he refers to old folk tales of women that have been unbound from the spell of immorality,

‘Foul as Florentius’ love,

As old as Sibyl,’

Kate’s is socially unacceptable and she remains undesired and mocked, and she admits herself, that it is humiliating for her not be preferred. Although this is the way that she has been constructed through men’s point of view of how she acts towards them. Obviously, the way Kate is described, as is not the way she wants to be known as, although it is her natural performance yet her act of femininity is not socially accepted into the world. Her father, Baptista also believes that Kate is socially unacceptable. He feels love towards Bianca and not Katherine. Katherine is not jealous of her sister as provoked, she is just suffocated and she expresses that through anger and beating in Act 2 scene 1. Katherine is sick of doing what is wanted to let Bianca get what she wants.

‘I must dance barefoot on her wedding day,

And for your love to lead apes into hell.’

However, her sister Bianca’s construction is socially acceptable. She is preferable and she obviously enjoys her status in society.

The character Petruchio is not attracted to the way that the female is constructed such as Bianca. He prefers the spirited, intelligent Kate. The meeting of Kate and Petruchio in Act 2 Scene 1 is different to that of any other conversation Katherina has with anyone else throughout the play. It is obvious by the language that Kate likes Petruchio and ...

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‘I must dance barefoot on her wedding day,

And for your love to lead apes into hell.’

However, her sister Bianca’s construction is socially acceptable. She is preferable and she obviously enjoys her status in society.

‘If I be waspish, best beware my sting.

My remedy to pluck it out.

Ay, the fool could find where it lies.’

If you are fighting with a new person, you are more likely to just ignore it, but Kate keeps arguing back to show that all females aren’t shy and timid like that is constructed for most. Petruchio is obviously enticed in this conversation and they both hit out the conversation over and over again. Petruchio’s language is very flirty and although Kate usually doesn’t take flirting, she argues back but her language starts to get more suggestive towards him. From line 186 through to line 195, Petruchio gives out different ways of putting Kate’s name and mostly mocking her. He calls her ‘bonny Kate…the prettiest Kate in Christendom, Kate of Kate hall.’ Kate has been constructed to be socially unattractive but here is Petruchio calling her ‘bonny Kate.’ He is also lining out how Kate’s going to be when he weds her. His speech is like his guidelines to see how she reacts towards these comments as he has been warned of her being a ‘shrew.’ His language is suggestive and he knows the reactions of the people towards her. He wants to see if she will fall for him and if he can work her out.

Bird imagery is used in Act 4 Scene 1. The hawk is a hunting, bird of prey and a bird is trained, it is eventually free and can come and go as it chooses and pleases.

It chooses to stay because it gains from its relationship with the trainer and knows its owner and surroundings well. Petruchio showing Kate that she has the opportunity to opt out of the construction of her femininity and can choose to gain social credibility.

Kate is happy that she has this choice; she has someone that cares for her and wants her to be with him. Kate can be tamed, but she cannot change and the opportunity with Petruchio is true love and to be accepted for whom she is. Petruchio talks of how he will train up Kate to be like a hawk that has the freedom to come and go whenever she pleases, yet always comes back to her keeper (Petruchio). He speaks of taming a female hawk as, ‘man my haggard,’ as if looking after a women and getting her to respect you is to train her up like a bird. He speaks of females as items that are there to be trained and he takes up Kate as a challenge. Petruchio refers to falcons as, ‘bate and beat,’ in their personality. He is referring to Kate’s attitude saying she is frustrated and angry at the start of the relationship, yet once she gets to know and trust you will earn the respect like a keeper to a bird. Males abuse the construction of femininity and they select who and who isn’t socially acceptable. They only try to gain respect of known and safe females such as Bianca.

Hawks are adapted to their environment to enable them to survive. In a way Kate, is converting herself to be able to fit into the environment but she doesn’t fit in to the construction that has been set up for her. She has not been adapted to the surroundings like a hawk and with training she may become socially acceptable towards the structure of femininity that has been created. She maybe more acceptable on the outside but she is still the same female that will not be changed through constructions of the normality.

At the wedding scene, when Petruchio and Katherina are to be wed, Petruchio’s message to Kate is that the whole wedding is superficial, nothing to do with them in themselves. The whole ceremony doesn’t express their true relationship between them; it is too shallow to express their real feelings. At Petruchio’s house, his behavior mirrors that of her previously and she is shown how it does not produce anything. Then when she returns to the house, ‘tamed’, the table have been turned. There is a change in Kate as the text shows. At the ceremony, Petruchio asks Kate to kiss him in the middle of the street. This would have been unacceptable for Kate before she meets Petruchio and she would have probably abused him and would never have even considered it. However, now she has been, ‘tamed’, Kate considers it. When Petruchio asks for a kiss, Kate is shocked as it is in the middle of the road and when asked if she is ashamed of him, she answers, ‘No sir, God Forbid,’ Kate has changed the way she talks to Petruchio and she has become more prim and proper towards her husband yet she has not totally changed. She does end up giving him a kiss and she is not ashamed to be with her husband. Her marriage to Petruchio was not superficial and he was the one that she could really talk to and he has managed to tame her at the same time as well as falling in love with her. Their relationship sexually and mentally is based on trust. They trust one and other and if Kate was not strong willed like Petruchio the relationship would not have worked. For Petruchio, Kate was a struggle to over come, as he needed to tame her to make sure she was suitable to trust.

The wager is the display of both Kate’s and Petruchio’s social superiority in the roles that they have taken. Bianca refuses to come, she is shown as the disobedient shrew herself now but looking at her responses to Lucentio when he chooses to ‘teach’ her, she says she will learn when she wants to, not when he wants to teach her. In Act 3 Scene 1, Bianca shows a little shrewish towards her teachings. When asked to repeat the Latin to Lucentio, she offers her won words to warn him.

‘Now let me see if I can conster it. ‘Hic

Ibat Simois,’ I know you not…I trust you not.’

Her words are that of sarcasm and warning Lucentio that he cannot control her like any other girl.

She starts to show her true colours; she is sweet on the outside, yet she is a shrew inside. She elopes, thus going against her father, which shows disobedience; this is never seen at the start of the play. Lucentio who marries Bianca and Hortensio who marries a widow, both abused Kate saying she was a shrew and not a good figure to marry. Both men however end up with shrewish wives and are both socially mockable and degraded. Petruchio, by having Kate come to him is elevated in social status by comparison. But equally so is she. She is seen to be the socially preferable and she gets her revenge on the men who constructed her as shrewish at the beginning.

Shakespeare has ended the play just how the Sly story begins at the start of Taming of The Shrew. The introduction Scene 2 shows Page dressing up as Sly’s obedient ‘wife’ and that is just how the play ends with Kate the obedient wife of Petruchio. However Kate is a real wife of a real man who has managed to tame her into a socially acceptable figure but also he is just the way she was which was the figure he fell in love with.