The Taming Of The Shrew, No Longer A Classic 

By. Robbie Wharton

PLP Humanities 12

Petra Willemse

September 26

The Taming Of The Shrew, written by William Shakespeare, is widely regarded as a literary classic. However, some of its misogynistic messages and themes have caused this play to no longer have the designation of classic in the Twenty-First Century. In this essay I will be arguing that The Taming Of The Shrew is not a classic on the grounds of its universal appeal, or lack there of. Universal appeal being the portrayal of themes and ideas that are commonly excepted and held by cultures through history. Specifically, I will be touching on how the misogynistic messaging this play portrays does not give it a universal appeal.

Throughout the majority of Act One, one of the underlying problems that Kate’s father faces is finding a husband for Kate. Kate is never given a say in who her husband will be, nor if she even wants to get married. The same is still true in act two scene one when Petrucio is discussing his proposal to marry Kate with Batista completely unbenounst to Kate herself. Furthermore, in that same scene, during Kate’s introduction to Petrucio followed by their duel of wits and puns, Petrucio states “will you, nil you, I will marry you” further showing he will marry her with or without her consent. All of this messaging suggests that a women should be expected to marry whomever her father or parent decides, this being against the social standard of Twenty-First Century western culture and therefore not universally appealing.

In Act Four Scene One, we are introduced to Petrucio’s plan to kill Kate with “kindness”. In other words, he plans to aggravate Kate through muinipulation, starvation, and sleep deprivation. All disguised as acts for her own good such as throwing away her dinner because it looked burnt. His intentions are to leave her wanting, going as far as to compare her to a wild falcon he must break in order to have her obey his call. He rationalizes his actions by stating that they are the best way to “curb her head strong humour”. In all of western society, as well as most of the world, this messaging of “domesticating” by abusing women is completely unexceptable. In fact, a perpetrator of “spousal abuse” can be given serious fines and jail time. 

The third and final scene I will be bringing up is the ending of the play, Act Five Scene Two. One of the most prominent ideas of this scene is Kate’s total reinvention of her personality. She has gone from being self spoken and stubborn to being obedient and submissive. In fact she had gone on to throwing the hat off her head and stepping on it when commanded. The messaging of this being that women should not be independent and should exist only to serve their husbands. This can be further supported by Kate’s ending speech in which she states that a woman is in service to her husband much like the duty “the subject owes the prince”. This mentality of women serving their husbands as a subject under them is not looked on as common or even acceptable in the majority of the western Twenty-First century world, showing how this play does not have a universal appeal.

To conclude,  this play does not have a universal appeal. This stems from the character Kate being married away to a man she’s never met, to being starved and sleep deprived in order to make her more obedient. Even the ending in which Kate gives a speech on how women should serve their husbands. Every instance previously mentioned is not something that is exepted by many cultures in the twenty first century making this play no longer a classic.