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.

My summer semester of college is slowly coming to a close, and I’m busy studying for my final exams, putting together my final presentation for psychology, and writing extra credit papers to make sure I get an A in all of my classes. As a result, I’ll be slightly busier and more occupied than normal, so a handful of the blog posts for the next week or so will be me slacking and just putting up some of my homework assignments that may or may not be of interest to the public.

My Homework for Your Reading Pleasure

I wrote this paper for extra credit for my Shakespeare class. The prompt was to read the first chapter of Fool by Christopher Moore, which is based off of Shakespeare’s King Lear, then write about if we want to continue reading the remainder of the book.

After reading the first chapter of Fool by Christopher Moore, I do not want to read the remainder of the book.

Before the start of the book, there is a warning that states that Fool is going to be a crude book with unsophisticated humor: “Herein you will find gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity, as well as non-traditional grammar, split infinitives, and the odd wank.” I usually don’t find obscene or foul humor funny, and see the act of excessive degrading of a character for humor as annoying more than funny. The fact that it was done intentionally in an attempt to try and make the book more enjoyable makes it worse in my opinion. As for the intentional misuse of grammar, I find using proper and precise grammar and syntax as an important component of a good piece of writing, and purposely misusing language does not at all seem like something that would make me want to read a story more than if it were written correctly.

Before I read the story, I was aware that this was a variation of Shakespeare’s King Lear, so I was expecting some of the characters who were introduced. However, even though I was familiar with the characters, the relationships among them and their relationships with the new characters (like the raven, Pocket the fool, Bubble the cook, and other ridiculously named characters) were unclear. On the other hand, it seems like if someone had not read Shakespeare’s King Lear before reading Fool, they would be completely confused at the mass entry of various characters without proper introduction or background information. For example, a random ghost makes an appearance at the end of the chapter without reason, but the fool acts as if he knows exactly what is going on.

Finally, a majority of the first chapter seems to be an argument between the fool and the cook, and it is difficult to follow what exactly they are arguing about. If the rest of the book were to continue in that manner, I don’t think I would be able to follow the plot very well.