If you didn’t catch this from yesterday, I’m working on getting everything done for my summer semester at college, so I don’t have much time on my hands. So, for the next few days or so, I’ll be putting my homework on my blog, which may or may not be of any interest to you.

My Homework for Your Reading Pleasure

This is a paper I wrote for my Shakespeare class about a speech by Katherine, a character in Shake­speare’s Taming of the Shrew. This will most likely not have any significance to you if you have not read Taming of the Shrew or do not remember the final speech by Katherine.

I think that Kate’s elaborate speech in Act 5, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew was intended to be taken as ironic rather than serious. Due to the events leading up to the speech, it is very difficult to prove that Kate completely changed her mind about how wives should treat their husbands, and it is likely that she made that speech because of an external motivator.

Throughout the play, Petruchio continued to belittle Kate, making her follow his word and way if she wanted to have things her way. For example, when Petruchio and Kate are going to the wedding of Kate’s younger sister, Bianca, Petruchio declares, “Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!” (Act 4, Scene 5). When Kate corrects Petruchio by saying “The moon? The sun! It is not moonlight now,” Petruchio says, “It shall be moon, or star, or what I list, or e’er I journey to your father’s house,” implying that if Kate does not agree with and listen to him, he will not continue on in the journey and Kate will not get what she wants. In order to convince Petruchio to continue, Kate says, “Forward, I pray, since we have come so far, and be it moon, or sun, or what you please. An if you please to call it a rush candle, henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.” This shows that Kate might not necessarily be agreeing with Petruchio because she thinks his word is right, but because she has an external motivator of getting what she wants, and having to agree with Petruchio just happens to be an obstacle in her path.

Shortly before entering Bianca’s wedding ceremony, Petruchio instructs Kate to kiss him. Again, this is another instance of when Kate does what Petruchio wishes because that is the only way to get what she wants. Petruchio says, “First kiss me, Kate, and we will” (Act 5, Scene 1). Kate clearly does not want to do it freely because she replies, “What, in the midst of the street? … God forbid, but ashamed to kiss.” To this, Petruchio replies, “Why, then let’s home again. Come, sirrah, let’s away,” saying that they will go home because Kate did not obey Petruchio. In order to solve this predicament, Kate goes ahead and kisses Petruchio to get what she wants (participating in the ceremony), not because she thinks she must serve her husband.

Kate’s speech about having to serve husbands well was not much later than when she was forced to kiss Petruchio in order to stay at the wedding. One may say that Kate the shrew was fully tamed at that point, but it is high unlikely that her mind completely changed during the short amount of time that she was in the ceremony. A change of personality in that nature would take a longer period of time and occur gradually; it would not show a drastic jump from Kate’s hesitating to kiss Petruchio to Kate’s elaborate declaration of loyalty to Petruchio.

Instead, it is more likely that she had the same motivation to make the speech as she did to follow through with the other acts (agreeing that the sun is the moon and kissing Petruchio) – to make sure she gets what she wants. The only difference in the speech was that there was no obvious immediate reward to making the speech. However, by making it seem like Kate is loyal and serving to Petruchio, she will make an impression on Petruchio such that he will be more willing to let her do what she wants in the future.