Q1. How does the induction scene impact upon our reading of master/servant relationships and/or social mobility in the play?
Q2. Is Bianca a sympathetic character?
Q3. In any screen adaptation you have seen, describe how the staging of Kate's extended final monologue renders a particular reading of the scene.
Q4. With any two dramatic characters from the play in mind, discuss social conditioning.
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Q1. The master/servant realtionships in the play are played to the extreme. They are the stereotypes of the words 'master' and 'servant', especially the case of Petruchio and his servants. He treats them as his servants, they are there just to serve him, and as noting else.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, there are some very good master servant relationships in the play. The relationship between Lucentio and Tranio seems more like that of friends, they are very close and seem to know each other very well. Tranio knows exactly how to play the part of Lucentio without needing much dirction at all. He knows exactly what his 'master' needs of him and Lucentio trusts Tranio entirely to do what he needs him to do.
The induction scene sets the vibe for how we should view these relationships and also makes a mockery of these relationships.
Once Sly believes that he has been asleep for 15 years and is indeed a Lord, he settles quite easily into the role of 'master'. He demands a small pot of ale from who he believes to be his sevants, and treats them as just that. He is quite likened to Petruchio in how he views himself and those below him.
This scene also makes a mockery of these relationships in that the Lord wants to create a play, to make somebody believe they are something they are not purely for his own entertainment. Master and servant swap roles in order to create a farce for their own benefit. In the actual play, Lucentio and Tranio swap roles so that Lucentio may win Biancas love. He doesn't care that he is misleading Bianca,who he supposedly loves, as long as he is successful in winning her over.
Sarah Leddy 04761740
Q 2. In creating such a perfect example of female passivity and obedience Shakespeare has rendered it extreamely difficult for any modern, independant woman to sympathise with Bianca. Society places her up on a pedestol as the epitome of femininity and she is given an almost divine status amoungst her contempoaries as the local gentry compete for her hand in marriage. In this way Bianca is frustratingly perfect and appears to have no weakness or failing whatsoever. It is almost impossible for us mere mortals to associate or sympathize with one so high up. Even if we are to take Peter Zeperelli's portrayal of Bianca as true there is little extra sympathy to be gained for her cause. Had her submissiveness simply been a ploy to help her gain a husband, as is suggested in this version, she looses the awe we had once considered her with. We are drawn to her shrewish yet honest older sister Kate as her temper and refusal to accept the status quo as more appealing qualities than a passive and potentially fake Bianca. In a strange twist of fortunes it is ironically what was considered Bianca's greatest asset (ie her passivity) which turns modern readers of the play against her and curtails our sympathy towards her.
ReplyDeleteIrene, group 3
Q4. Social conditioning is one of the most central ideas to the play. Whilst it is possible that Bianca simply has a naturally passive nature, it is perhaps more likely that she has been socially conditioned to behave this way (especially considering the strong will that seems to pervade the rest of her family). Perhaps society's shunning and mockery of her 'shrewish' sister Katherina has inspired her to conform so ardently (even Kate's own father expresses his disgust at her), in order to avoid the same treatment. As her behaviour has been determined by social attitudes, this is perfect example of social conditioning.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, when Katherina makes her final speech - appearing to accept the role of 'passive and obedient woman' - there are other factors at play. If we take an 'ironic' reading of the play (seeing Katherina as knowingly mocking conventions), she is merely feigning social conditioning and satirising its futility. Alternatively, if Katherina genuinely has been 'tamed' by Petruchio, I feel this too is not 'social' conditioning as such: Katherina has become submissive not out of fear of social rejection (which doesn't appear to bear much significance to her), but out of fear of her husband's mistreatment of her and association of his torture tactics (food and sleep deprivation) with her old behaviour.
-Rosalind Abbott, Monday 10am group
Q3. The adaptation I will be referring to is the BBC ‘ShakespeaRe-Told: Taming of the Shrew’ (2005). Despite the fact that the dialogue has changed, Kate’s extended final monologue is present, albeit in a slightly different context. In this modernised adaptation, Kate (played by Shirley Henderson) is responding to a discussion about pre-nuptial agreements. She explains that she does not believe in them because her husband is her life and her protector, who puts up with her despite all her female faults. Like Shakespeare’s Kate, she offers to put her hands under her husband’s feet. This offer is somewhat undermined, however, as Kate says she knows he would never ask her to do so, articulating an idea which is often implicit in the staging of this scene. Therefore, the expression of female submission present in Shakespeare’s text is reduced, and a sense of equality is furthered. This is reinforced throughout the scene, as Kate and Petruchio (Rufus Sewell) share loving glances and by the end of the scene are shown sitting together, embracing. There is also a strong element of irony in Kate’s belittlement of women, as in this adaptation she is the leader of a predominantly male political party (this irony is underpinned by Petruchio’s knowing smirks at her speech – perhaps hinting at a level of complicity). These changes render the entire scene more palatable for a modern audience, although Kate and Petruchio’s affectionate relationship is still somewhat jarring after the “taming” scenes, which border on torture.
ReplyDeleteCaoimhe Ni Dhonaill, Monday class, 10am.
Q2. Bianca is a problematic character for the post-feminist audience. Her quiet passivity and victimization at the hands of her sister seem tepid and even pathetic to the modern viewer. When juxtaposed with the cunning and strong-mindedness that is evinced by her secret marriage to Lucentio and later refusal of her new husbands orders, her exaggerated feminine goodness seems to be a revolting misuse of a good mind bent more on leisure than true emancipation in her own household.
ReplyDeleteWhile the modern woman might struggle with Bianca’s submission, I cannot imagine that her strong-mindedness at the end of the play inspired the sympathies of Shakespeare’s contemporaries. Regardless, though, of the society’s approach to woman as either independent individual or wholly dependent property, her two-faced abandonment of even the semblance of dutifulness so soon after her wedding renders her largely unsympathetic. Her retort to her husband upon hearing of his lost bet (“The more fool you, for laying on my duty,”) suggests that she has rejected the responsibility of a wife while snatching up its freedoms. It leaves her too bold for a lady in 1592, but still despicable in her purely self-indulgent subversion of her oppression.
How sympathetic Bianca is throughout the play, though, depends largely on the interpretation of her character and those around her. If the men in her life, except for Lucentio, are played as truly domineering, overbearing, or even physically violent, then much of her behavior can be excused as clever plotting to escape the repression common to her sex and house. If, however, as is the case in Zeffirelli’s 1967 film of the play, Bianca performed as a simpering and false beauty, her mask of female piety invokes more disgust than sympathy.
Clancy Flynn, Group 3
Q1. The induction scene shows us a form of master/servant relationships in which the master has almost god-like power over the servant/ any underlings. The Lord in the induction scene has the power to make his servant, Bartholemew, and the Players in the tavern act an elaborate scene to trick Sly, all for the Lord's amusement. Bartholemew is even made to dress in female attire. The Lord raises Sly, for a time, to a position not his own, an act reminiscent of Queen Elizabeth I's capricious manner of giving rewards and favours of title to members of her court.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the power dynamic seen here is replayed with Lucentio and his servant Tranio-- Tranio is made to disguise himself and is raised to the position of Master for a short perid of time so Lucentio may carry out his plans to woo Bianca. But the master/servant binary is seen also with Baptista and his daughters. He has the absolute power over their futures, Bianca's especially. Kate's defiance of this power bucks the precednet of complete subservience to one's master that has so far been shown. She is put back in her "place" by Petruchio, to whom the divine power to giveth and taketh away is given upon marriage. He can, with impunity, deny her food and rest in order to get what he wants--a docile wife. Thus, the master/servant binary touches all characters in the play, and we see the absolute power that lords have over those under them.
Megan, Friday 1:00
Q2: In my opinion, Bianca is not a sympathetic character. At first, it seems as though Bianca will be the main character because of all the commotion caused by her many suitors, but the reader soon sees that she is far too vapid and bland to qualify as the female lead. In truth, Bianca is not very interesting apart from her multitude of admirers and the unique shrewishness of her sister, Katherina. Though readers may at first sympathize with Bianca because she is doomed to remain unmarried until her sister gains a husband, this first empathy quickly fades. It soon becomes evident to the reader that Bianca is not the naïve girl the reader first assumed she was—instead, she is a rather ordinary woman who is caught up in the game of catching a husband. Bianca’s lack of naivety is especially revealed in the scene in which she appears with her two “tutors.” She does not repel Lucentio’s advances when he tells her he is reading The Art of Love and even encourages him by saying “…may you prove…master of your art” (3.4.9). The last scene, in which Lucentio calls upon Bianca to come to him and she does not appear, shows that Bianca’s once fervent devotion to her husband has faded—indeed, she may have been more in love with the idea of marrying Lucentio and becoming a wife than with Lucentio himself.
ReplyDeleteLily Ringler, Thursday 9:00