Created on Monday, 10/03/2011 11:18 PM by Barbara Doyle
Updated on Tuesday, 10/04/2011 2:30 PM by Barbara Doyle
In the assigned reading, Quarrels: The Language of Insult, the author writes about how women verbally attacked other women they deemed less important on the social scale. The name calling the insults all in the name of what they could say that would hurt the most. Telling women to run home "whore" a name that would typically be a horrible insult was the tamer of the words used. The insults were also heard many times in the play Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare, Kate is in a position where she was typically the one that spit out insults and angry words. Petruchio puts the shoe on the other foot by giving back to Kate as good as she gave to the others in the play. In the following excerpt this is pointedly so, in ActII SceneI.
Kate is rough and tough, and not at all someone that a man would want to take as his wife. She phsyically slaps him and speaks down to him in a manner so unlike the ladies of the time. Petruchio comes right back telling her he will cuff her showing he can be just as nasty. Petruchio sees her and sees dollar signs. He sees a woman as no bother at all if she is equipped with a hefty dowry, which Kate does have. Baptista is hopeful to find a husband for his other daughter Bianca as well but is unable to do so because Kate is so difficult to tame. It was also not typical for the younger sister to marry before her elder sister. Kate is not your typical Elizabethan woman from the start of the play. Loud, nasty, and downright physically abusive to suitors or men about town. She was tamed into the submissive woman her husband expected her to behave as with a complete turnaround in her behavior. She agreed with him even when she knew him to be wrong. Petruchio calls the sun the moon and at first Kate wants to argue but she knows that if she does Petruchio's wrath could be much worse. Illustration: Petruchio and Katharina Illustration: Petruchio stops Katharina to test her willingness to accept his version of reality. Act IV, Scene 5 So Kate the shrew becomes Kate the lady, the good wife, and does this please Petruchio? He is very proud he has won the bet. However; he has also lost the firery woman that made life very colorful and unexpected.PETRUCHIO: Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry. KATHARINA: If I be waspish, best beware my sting. PETRUCHIO: My remedy is then, to pluck it out. KATHARINA: Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies, PETRUCHIO: Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail. KATHARINA: In his tongue. PETRUCHIO: Whose tongue? KATHARINA: Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell. PETRUCHIO: What, with my tongue in your tail? nay, come again, Good Kate; I am a gentleman. KATHARINA: That I'll try. She strikes him PETRUCHIO I swear I'll cuff you, if you strike again.
CommentsComments (2) Barbara, I only have one word for your blog, stellar!!! Keep up teh good work.--Susan Wednesday, 10/05/2011 12:37 PM by Susan Quarrell
Thanks so much Professor! If you recall - I was so nervous at the start of it. Maybe it's the material, but writing about what I'm reading is becoming fun? Yes! I believe this is fun....I am really loving the whole class (virtual as it may be). Wednesday, 10/05/2011 2:06 PM by Barbara Doyle | Delete Add Comment Post on
October 1 2011 (permalink) -edithistorydelete Created on Saturday, 10/01/2011 2:01 AM by Barbara Doyle Katharina in Taming of the Shrew is a very headstrong, loud, seemingly nasty woman. Bianca, her sister, is portrayed as a lovely young lady with a very beguiling way about her. While both are sisters they couldn't be more different, or could they? Kate as she is called by Petruchio, I feel he calls her that on purpose, has met her match. Petruchio is forewarned but he could really care less because when he looks at Kate he sees a challenge and dollar signs beyond the challenge. Kate sees Petruchio and is determined to prove she is nothing like the women he typically meets. True she is different and she goes out of her way to be such a person. She snaps at men, women, anyone really that annoys her; which appears easily done. She is annoyed that Petruchio feels he can talk down to her and therefore she get right up in his face to argue with him. She slaps him customarily never acceptable especially to the man that is asking your hand in marriage. Her father almost seems to have no control over her which is also very contrasting to the character we read previous. Sweet Juliet would never have raised a hand to hit someone or would she? She knew how to keep her emotions in check and perhaps if she acted out she would have been similar to Kate. Bianca was the most underestimated in the book. She is seen as diminutive, and pretty so pretty it was all that the men seemed to see. They didn't go beyond that and she wasn't expected to be more than an attractive accompaniment on her man's arm. Bianca is dismissive, and downright cruel when she walks over poor one man for another. She does this without a second glance and without apology. This is quite the nasty move on her part, and especially out of character for her. When reading about how women banded together to form a strong union and rebelling against the man that wronged them, it occured to be me that Kate and Bianca could have come together as a unit. They could have lambaste Petruchio for his treatment of Kate and made him become the more submissive of the two. Instead Kate learned that if she went along with her husband and reaffirmed anything he proclaimed to be life could be tolerable. The squeakiest wheel always gets the oil. Therefore I would surmise Petruchio squeakiest of them all. CommentsComments Add Comment Post on
September 27 2011 (permalink) -edithistorydelete Created on Tuesday, 09/27/2011 12:19 PM by Barbara Doyle I felt the need to post something thus far because I have read some of the play and the mini lecture on Taming of the Shrew. It has intriuged me very much so far. Perhaps because I am totally unfamiliar with this work of Shakespeare. The character that I have come to know as Kate has my full attention for how she is described. She is THE SHREW, of which I didn't find a wow factor at first. Many women I have met in my time have shrew-pontential. However they typically aren't as mad and nasty as they appear. For instance, her sister Bianca who seems to have the eye of many men and would be easily married off has the potential to be a shrew but she hides it well. She is seen as a lovely woman who would make a fitting bride and of course wife. Women from this time were bartered as a piece of property to be "sold" in terms of the dowry that would be offered to the man willing to take over watch of the young woman. Kate is seen as someone that you would marry as some form of punishment. In the words of: GREMIO I say, a devil. Thinkest thou, Hortensio, though her father be very rich, any man is so very a fool to be married to hell? This is how the men view Kate as a form of hell to endure that no matter how rich her father, it would not be worth marrying. Kate's father has a very substantial dowry but the men aren't eager to take it because with it come Kate, the shrew. Kate will not make the life of her husband an easy one. I know she marries thanks to the mini lecture but I have so much to find out and I am eager to read on. "Women in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey man." http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/elizabethan-women.htm I found the quote above in a website about Elizabethan women. It also stated that a woman that disobeyed be it her father or her husband was seen to have commited a crime against their religion. It was seen this seriously. Kate must have penance to recite if this is the case. Or is it? I must continue to read and find out. CommentsComments Add Comment Post on
September 24 2011 (permalink) -edithistorydelete Created on Saturday, 09/24/2011 10:03 PM by Barbara Doyle Updated on Sunday, 09/25/2011 3:14 PM by Barbara Doyle Queen Elizabeth I 1533 - 1588 One of Queen Elizabeth's quotes, "Better beggar woman and single than Queen and married" truly encapsulated for my view of her. She was to be the Queen of England the most high position in the land. She preferred to be single, most converse of the typical woman of that day. Women were brought up to believe they would marry and honor their husband. Elizabeth wanted to marry someone that would be suitable for her country, not someone from another country no matter how they may try to woo her. She was a smart ruler and one that knew the person that she chose would also have certain power in being her husband. It was also not something high on her priority list. Her life story plays out like that of a Shakespearean play of sorts. Marriage offers, that she would pull along in the effort to keep peace between two countries. As soon as things would calm she would move on and look to the next suitor. She was involved with a man who she grew up with and had every intention, as far as I've read, of being with in marriage. Lord Robert Dudley, who was married to a woman who was quite ill. She falls to her death down a flight of stairs. Her death was thought to have been more than an accident, in fact, Lord Robert was speculated to have been at the hand of her death. I felt this was closely related to a Shakespeare play, where in Lady Macbeth, makes her husband's competition for king disappear. Did Lord Robert play the lady's part in reality? Was Elizabeth responsible as well? Elizabeth, did seem to uphold the expectations of her however she did this on her own terms. She managed to play the part of the woman in need of a husband but if she felt it wrong she bowed out. She used her feminine whiles to let suitors believe she would marry them but it was all part of a diplomatic strategy. I think that alone is a sign she knew what was expected of her and used it to her advantage. The quote selected was from http://www.elizabethi.org/ CommentsComments Add Comment Post on September 18 2011 (permalink) -edithistorydelete
Created on Sunday, 09/18/2011 9:35 AM by Barbara Doyle ""Unruly women," "outlaws", "the female Wild", "the Other" are some provocative terms" you think?? These titles made me wonder how bad can these women be that they deserve such titles. The men of history have typically been in the leadership roles therefore dictating what is wild or unruly. Did the men themselves behave so well that they could dole out these labels. Foot in mouth Surely it's unfair but welcome to being a woman since the dawn of time. When a woman is in power the censor was on to make the heroine in the book less delicate. This give me hope for the future. I imagine that by the time a woman is in power, the power role, in our country perhaps salaries would be more equal, respect would be given as much as it's due and the judgment wouldn't be about how a woman looks but how she performs. I guess I get a little heated about this topic especially given I work in a mainly male environment. How I dress, behave, and speak is all determined by my superiors. It is not a woman women broke out of the shell every once in a while. When reading the piece about Cleopatra I searched via Google to see how she is perceived. I found this blurb encapsulating a description I found to be quite different from the sultry, sexy woman compared to the very modest women of her day. "What is often not associated with Cleopatra was her brilliance and her devotion to her country. She was a quick-witted woman who was fluent in nine languages, however, Latin was not one of them. She was a mathematician and a very good businesswoman. She had a genuine respect for Caesar, whose intelligence and wit matched her own. Antony on the other hand almost drove her insane with his lack of intelligence and his excesses. She dealt with him and made the most of what she had to do. She fought for her country. She had a charismatic personality, was a born leader and an ambitious monarch who deserved better than suicide." http://www.touregypt.net/cleopatr.htm This is the sort of woman that makes other women stand up taller in their shoes. Not the sex-crazed heathen that of the time these women judged her to be. CommentsComments Add Comment Post on September 11 2011 (permalink) -edithistorydelete
Created on Monday, 09/12/2011 12:01 AM by Barbara Doyle When reading about gender roles in Elizabethan England, I am reminded of Juliet from Romeo and Juliet. Juliet Capulet is told who she will marry by order of her father. This not something that women in that time questioned. It is nothing like today's young woman who is able to make her own choice of a husband. She is not restricted by her class as a woman. In Shakespeare's time the woman was a decoration in the home. She would read and write and be expected to do nothing of consequence. Her duties would be to honor her husband and providing a heir to their home. William Shakespeare's Juliet was headstrong, in love with the "wrong" man and determined to experience love on her terms. The feud of their families prevented their union from ever being able to be considered. Like most teenagers Juliet feels the pain of unrequited love and believes it will not fade over time. She is determined to be with her love, Romeo, by any means neccessary. She is a rebel, the first of many I'm sure. It's women like Juliet that women like the nurse maid live vicariously through. Lady Viola on the other hand was a woman that I admired for her subversion of the Renaissance expectations. She was going to be in the theater, government be damned. She knew that dressing as a man to play Romeo was against the law. She couldn't suppress her desire to play the part, to act and read the words of Shakespeare. However she does uphold certain Renaissance expectations because she does as her father commands. She marries Lord Wessex, even though she is in love with Will Shakespeare. Will and Viola both know that they can not be legally wed so they indulge in the love affair against all odds. Lord Wessex finds out about the affair and is angry but he is determined to keep what is rightfully his, Lady Viola. When she is caught acting in the theater she found an ally in Queen Elizabeth. She too knows what it is like to be told what you must do and that as a woman in that time you suppressed your inner desires. The Queen of all people was also subject to the expectations of her father. She seemed a bitter woman. Her power and stature seemed to empower her but she didn't appear to be happy. I felt that was the reason she requested Shakespeare to write a comedy next. She has enough tragedy and woe during her role as ruler. CommentsComments Add Comment Post on September 4 2011 (permalink) -edithistorydelete
Created on Sunday, 09/04/2011 9:25 PM by Barbara Doyle This blogging assisgment I find to be the bain of my college course load. I have been told to blog about what I am reading. If I am reading, then blog. Easier said than done I suppose. I wasn't actively reading anything in the course or I should say I thought that nothing was assigned as of yet. I thought that reading the biography of Shakespeare was all we were to begin with reading. Perhaps I missed the instruction or better, didn't understand the instruction. I had been reading a book about Jacyee Lee Duggard, A Stolen Life: A Memoir by Jacyee Dugard. She is a Renaissance woman in every sense of the word. She was taken by a man who believed himself a man of the holy cloth. She was abused and managed to endure all and escape with her children. Finding a better life, away from her captors and help those that have been through a similar experience. She has been reborn and renewed with the strength she always had all those years. She begs everyone that reads her book to J A Y C, "just ask yourself", a thing that two police officers did and she is forever grateful. Something didn't seem right and she was saved by two women that managed to make certain things were as they seemed which they were not and Jacyee was found. Could she be a Shakespearean character, absolutely! Her life is wrought with tragedy and she is a hero as seen by so many. The officers as well could be viewed as the true heroes. Strong women that helped to bring the evil, Phillip Garrido to swift and neccessary justice. I truly hope this is somewhere, somehow close to what you wanted us to do. If not you can see I am clearly, confused. CommentsComments Add Comment Blog Question (permalink)
Created on Tuesday, 08/30/2011 9:08 PM by Susan Quarrell Each week you will ask yourself the same question, "What image of womanhood is represented in this piece and how does that image uphold or subvert Renaissance expectations regarding the female gender?" While your question is always the same, your answer will vary depending on what is under discussion, what you are reading and which film you are examining.
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