The Taming of the Shrew DD Period 1 Post 3
Colin Easter
Apparently this didn’t post on Saturday when I hit publish. I apologize that I only realized this now. We have learned that Petruchio’s behavior towards Kate is because of his plan to tame her. It has been successful as well. Lucentio married Bianca, but his scheme was uncovered. Hortensio married a widow. At the end of the play, we learn that Kate is now the most obedient wife. This raises some interesting questions. Do you think that Petruchio used the right methods to tame Kate? What kind of punishment do you think that Lucentio will receive for his scheme? Why is Kate the most loyal wife now? Is it because of fear or because she learned loyalty and values from Petruchio?
Category: Discussion Director 5 comments »
May 24th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Colin Easter
I would like to apologize again for not realizing that the post didn’t go through when I tried to publish it.
I think that Petruchio did use the right methods to tame Kate. Since Kate’s attitude wasn’t going to change easily, it took a large shock to get her to change her ways. Any lesser attempt probably wouldn’t have had much of an effect on her. It took a large shock to get her to realize that her behavior wasn’t right.
I don’t think that Lucentio will get too much punishment, but his father certainly won’t be happy. He will probably get a few whacks and some monetary privileges revoked for a time.
I think that Kate is the most loyal wife because Petruchio instilled values and loyalty into her. She learned that that kind of behavior isn’t acceptable or fun to be around. By seeing Petruchio acting like she did, she learned that errors of her ways and corrected them.
May 24th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
I think that Petruchio might have been a little extreme in his methods of taming Kate, but they were definitely effective. He should have however backed off when it was quite obvious that she was tamed. I guess the reason he thought that this was necessary because he did not want to make her think that he would be lenient after her initially taming.
I agree with Colin in that Lucentio will not be punished too much. It is possible that his father will disown him though. It is not too uncommon of a thing to do, especially for the circumstances and time period. As a stereotype people were not as affectionate as they are now.
I think Kate is the most loyal wife because her eyes have been opened to how fortunate she is to have a husband and not only that, but a loving one. She may have initially learned through fear, but this I think was truly instilled in her through Petruchio teaching her.
~eRiN cAmPbElL =]
May 24th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
I think that Petruchio did use the right method to tame Kate because it was the only thing that would get through to Kate. I think that Lucentio will be punished harshly but he will be forgiven eventually because he did it in the name of love. I think he might be treated like Kate because he did not do what was planned but when it is done he will be all right. I think that Kate is the most loyal wife because she fears Petruchio but I also think it is because she loves him and respects him.
-Taran
May 25th, 2009 at 7:06 am
Sonam Sherpa
First off, I realize that this comment is extremely late but I had known that Colin’s initial blog would be late, and I wasn’t checking periodically to whether or not he had commented, My bad.
Well, I think that some of what Petruchio did was a little unethical, but overall he needed to do it to tame someone so stubborn. In some situations where you can’t solve the problem with conventional methods you must use desperate measures to get what you want, as we can see here with Petruchio. What Petruchio did wasn’t really that bad either, I personally can imagine him going a lot farther with his little scheme. The only thing to me that seemed a little over the edge would be what he did at his own wedding.
I don’t think that Lucentio shall receive any punishment for his scheme to wed Bianca. The reason why I think this is because he did trick everyone into thinking he was someone else, and yes, he did find a fake father to approve of the wedding, but in retrospect he had done all of this to get the hand of Bianca, which can be somewhat understood. If they do choose to punish him though I think it would probably only be either the silent treatment or not allowing him to marry Bianca.
Kate is the most loyal wife now because she now realizes where women should stand in society (in those times). Back then women would only be needed for certain things and it wasn’t proper for them to fight back like she had always done. Then when she realized this she had decided to start obeying her new husband and be a better woman. The other wives had already realized this and probably had grown weary of playing the wife part, so because Kate had more motivation to be the better wife, she was.
I think that Kate was never really scared of Petruchio, I think that she was just scared of what he could do, and surprised by what he did do. So I think that she had just finally learnt how to be loyal. The reason for this is most likely that Petruchio was the first guy in her life that had not treated her like a princess and gave her whatever she wanted. It might been because of this fact that Kate had learnt to respect Petruchio more than some other male figures in her life because he was more demanding and such.
May 25th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
I dont think that what he did was neccesary. You can beat a dog untill it learns the tricks, its effective, but wrong. I think that he could have been a little less aggresive in his ways.
She is the most loyal wife now, becuase if she was disobeidient, she would suffer greatly and petruchio would become what he was earlier.
I think she does it our of fear. A dog will do the tricks and obey out of fear of being beaten. Just scared