THE TAMING OF THE (TRUE) SHREW

Maya Tzur

Honors Thesis

Fall 2013

Professor Homan, Professor Shoaf

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CONTENTS

Introduction

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All the World’s A Stage – Staging the Play 4

Is She the Worst? - Analyzing Katherina the Curst

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The Not-So-Sly Aspects of the Christopher Sly Induction 10

Bianca: The True Shrew 13

Conclusion 33

Works Cited 35

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Introduction

Literature, when written effectively, can be as illusionary as pulling

a rabbit from a hat. One can believe and see that an ordinary top hat is

empty; yet, the magician will still make a hare appear from thin air. It takes

a moment to realize that the trick is being completed in plain sight, the

rabbit never having left the hat. Comparatively, one is made to believe that,

because Bianca Minola in William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew

is famed for her beauty and innocence, it means that her reputation

defines her personality. However, by Act V, she seems to have developed a

sense of sass and disobedience for no concrete reason. With all the main

protagonists, including the youngest Minola, receiving what they covet

most—true love—why does Bianca suddenly go from being the fair, docile

daughter to being “headstrong” (V.ii.134)? With analysis of the text, it is

clear that Bianca has duped not only the audience, but her peers and

husband as well: In reality, she was the true shrew all along.

My approach to this project comes from both a literary and

theatrical sense. While fluent with the play beforehand—having studied it

in three of my Literature classes within a year—throughout my time

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studying the play, I never had any cause to doubt Bianca’s innocence. I

wrote a final paper in a previous class about how different versions of The

Taming of the Shrew across media platforms portrayed Katherina as the

shrew. Unfortunately, I never made the connection of a role switch

between Katherina and Bianca, as I did not condition myself to read

between the lines of the text. So, a beneficial and necessary aspect of

conducting the research for this paper was having the unique opportunity

to portray Bianca in a reader’s theater production of The Taming of the

Shrew this past April.

The Taming of the Shrew focuses on the parallel stories of two

sisters, Katherina and Bianca Minola. Katherina is the older and less

favored sibling; due to her erratic behavior, she is infamously and

disparagingly known to those who surround her as “the shrew.” Bianca,

who appears to be demure, is revered for her iridescent beauty, and is the

object of desire for many men across the land. Nevertheless, all is not what

it seems: it was only after I was able to personally step into the

metaphorical shoes of the character that I began to realize how she is a

more powerful antagonist than her sister, which was completely the

opposite of everything I knew and read about her. I realized that for my

purposes, portraying Bianca as an innocent victim was not the most

organic path. The way she lied to her father, misled Gremio and Hortensio,

and directly defied Lucentio after their wedding directly tainted the

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innocent image I had imagined.

The title does insinuate that a shrew has undergone a taming

process; yet, it does not delegate when this occurs or whom the title is

talking about. There can be two options as to how the play’s name can be

interpreted. The first option is that The Taming of the Shrew’s title is

summary of the play: Katherina is the shrew and the events of the play

revolve around her taming process. With the use of synonyms, a second

translation can be made: the suppression of the shrew. With this inference,

Bianca essentially puts on the mask of innocence throughout the play’s

events, with her true self begging to reach the surface. Naturally, the first

translation is the most historically common take on the story, as it is only

natural to think that the title would be talking about the person who is

constantly deemed the shrew. I will discuss how literally this assumption

can be inferred, as well as how it can also be equally plausible that Bianca

can be the shrew.

All the World’s A Stage – Staging the Play

The idea of staging the play first came about after a performance of

Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia that I starred in at Ustler Hall (the Women’s

Studies center). I gathered with two MFA Theater candidates named Joseph

Urick and Sunny Smith to discuss the possibilities of staging a play that

accentuates the struggle and eventual empowerment of women. They both

agreed that the theater department needed a way outside of the regular

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performance schedule to speak out about these themes; as an English

Literature major and an actress, I agreed to act in the play. Together, we

decided to stage The Taming of the Shrew and have the play’s

performances directly coincide with International Women’s Month. Our

main message was to accentuate the harms that verbal, emotional and

physical abuse can cause women, as well as to show how negative odds

and circumstances can be combated.

In terms of casting, we decided to combine the theater departments

with the Classics and English departments, as Shakespeare’s works are as

prominent in the theater world as they are within literature. The

representatives of the English Department were Professor Homan, and my

self (Vincentio and Bianca, respectively). In addition, my classmate and

colleague, Jeff Jurgens, was cast as Gremio. Joseph Urick (a classically

trained actor and 3rd year MFA candidate who performed The Taming of

the Shrew Off-Broadway) played Petruchio. Urick was also the primary

director, so Professor Homan directed any scenes starring Petruchio.

Baptista’s gender was switched in order to accentuate the themes of

feminine presence in theater and literature; Karelisa Hartigan, a Classics

Professor, undertook the role. Sunny Smith, also an MFA candidate, was

cast as Katherina. The actors playing Tranio, the widow, Grumio, Lucentio,

and Hortensio were all MFA, BFA and BA theater students; since the theater

department had several performances scheduled in March, the two

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performances of The Taming of the Shrew were pushed to April.

In order to make the play revolve around the themes of feminism,

Sunny and I played Katherina and Bianca wanted our acting to portray

strong leading women. I decided to portray Bianca as an insufferable,

disobedient girl, in order lend the cause for Katherina to create an identity

outside of the shrew. There were so many hoops and obstacles Katherina

had to jump because of Bianca’s behavior, such as living in the shadow of

her sister, maintaining her individuality in spite of outsider abuse, and

being forced to succumb to an societal expectation of her gender that she

does not relate to.

Her character’s development in Act V is laudable, because she has a

plethora of negative influences to overcome. As exemplified by a quote by

Peter Alexander, Katherina defeats the contrived identity of the shrew,

rather than allow it to overtake her permanently. “Though [Katherina’s]

role is ridgidly prescribed by the plot, [she] shows a strength and

independence that makes us wish that Shakespeare could have contrived

in the end to show more clearly that she stoops to conquer” (67). Both of

our depictions purposely were meant to show the importance of powerful

women in literature and theater; if we played Bianca as innocent and

Katherina as meaninglessly devilish, there would be no poignant female

protagonists within true moral fiber of the play.

The director, as well as Sunny and I, felt the need to pay homage to

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strong women in Shakespearean literary history by ensuring that

Katherina and Bianca both had opposing personality arcs. As we can see in

subsequent works, with characters like Viola in Twelfth Night, Beatrice in

Much Ado About Nothing, to name a few, it would be uncharacteristic of

Shakespeare to create two weak, defenseless female characters. Viola takes

initiative after her brother’s death and uses her insight in order to dress as

a man and live within the kingdom of Duke Orsino. Beatrice’s relationship

with Benedick can allude to Katherina’s with Petruchio: both are marked

with witty, quick banter and graduate from enmity to endearment. Both

characters gain fulfillment by the end of the play, and retained their

composure and strength as long as they were on stage. To the creative crew

of our show, Bianca and Katherina both should exhibit these behaviors of

independence and strength against all odds, as it would be a perfect

metaphor for the importance of Women’s Month.

Is She the Worst? - Analyzing Katherina the Curst

During the play, Katherina is known as “a devil, a devil, the devil’s

dam,” and no one can seem to subdue her erratic behavior (III.ii.129). To

Baptista and the suitors, Katherina’s purpose is to find a husband so her

sister can be eligible for marriage, in spite of the fact that they think it is

impossible to find a willing, compatible husband. When Hortensio is

talking to Petruchio about Katherina, he remarks that Katherina, although

beautiful and from a respectably wealthy family, her reputation holds firm

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that is not marriage material. “Her only fault, and that is faults enough, / Is

that she is intolerable curst / And shrewd and froward, so beyond all

measure / That, were my state far worser than it is, / I would not wed her

for a mine of gold” (I.ii.84-88). This affects the way Hortensio and Gremio

treat her, and she resents the way men regard her; in response, she

attempts several times—to no avail—to try and make others, especially her

father, become aware of how neglected she feels. “[S]he must have a

husband; / I must dance bare-foot on her wedding day (II.i.32-33).

In reality, Katherina’s attitude is just a consequence of her vexation

with Bianca. Kate could be a pioneer for women’s rights for her time, as

she subverts the abusive, biased authority of her father. She wants to

choose who she wants to wed, rather than be obliged to a man in order to

make room for her sister’s grand wedding. Indeed, she is witty and

combative with the men who slander her, but just wants to show that she

should not be tossed aside like trash. Katherina’s philosophy is to think for

herself and rise above prejudice: “I see a woman may be made a fool, / If

she had not a spirit to resist” (III.iii.91-92).

Tranio (Lucentio’s servant and an audience member to the first

scene of Act I) infers that Katherina can easily be just misguided, rather

than the crazy person everyone is stating her to be. “That wench is stark

mad or wonderful froward” (I.i.68). The old English definition of froward is

“to lead away from” (“Froward”). Due to years of verbal abuse and

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name-calling from everyone around her, she could just be stuck in a cycle

of denying who she really is. It suffices to say that characters like Baptista,

Bianca, Hortensio and Gremio continue to reinforce Katherina’s identity of

the shrew by constantly belittling her.

Further, Katherina’s true self (which we see with her monologue at

the end of Act V) has been repressed due to the levels and years of

maltreatment. Just like a person making and molding various shapes with

clay, one’s environment can, with enough force, break down and

manipulate the lattice of one’s personality. As John Bean states, Katherina

is merely refusing to conform to the narrow margin of acquiescence and

acceptance of her role as a woman in a time of feminine repression. “If

shrewishness is a kind of rigidity, a behavioral pattern locked into closed,

predictable responses, then the chaos of play is a liberating force, and

Kate’s initial bad temper is directly related to her failure to embrace it”

(72).

Nevertheless, Katherina’s strong personality does not negate that she

is the victim of abuse throughout the play. As a result of neglect and abuse

from her family, Katherina exhibits defensive mechanisms and tactics that

are used to protect herself. She is merely a product of her poisonous

surroundings due to the fact that everyone consistently belittles her and

reinforces that she is wicked. Her combative nature is due in part to the

fact that she is so broken inside; she must be distrustful, as it is not fair for

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her to continuously take abuse from her father and sister, as well as the

suitors Gremio and Hortensio. Katherina is not an inherent shrew, but

rather a blank book that the other characters author as the play carries on:

Whatever they call her, that is what she becomes. The first clues leading to

how others perceive and treat Katherina are when Gremio says he would

want to “cart her” because she is “too rough,” and Hortensio snidely

remarks that they are indeed not her “mates” because she is not of a

“gentler, milder mold” (II.i.55, 59-60).

In comedic opposition to the Hortensio and Gremio’s

pronouncements, Katherina is polite and reasonable in asking her father

not to force two uninterested men into her dating pool. “I pray you, sir, is it

your will / To make a stale of me amongst these mates?” (I.i.57). As soon as

they start adversely remarking about her, she takes a defensive course and

begins to exhibit shrew-like behaviors due to the verbal abuse she is facing.

However, even though the evidence from characters like Hortensio,

Gremio and Baptista may suggest she incites conflict, one needs to give

Katherina the benefit of the doubt. As Robert B. Heilman astutely states, “

modern critics treat her as harshly as if from the start she were a

particularly obnoxious female…. Farce often turns on practical jokes, in

which the sadistic impulse is not restrained by any sense of injury to the

victim” (154). Her behaviors are completely justified, both in a

psychological and logical sense. Verbal abuse causes self-deprecation and

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depression, as evidenced when Katherina begins to ponder why her father

does not ever come to her defense, she feels isolation and melancholy:

“Talk not to me: I will go sit and weep” (II.i.35).

Baptista enters during Act II scene i and sees Bianca in distress; of

course, he automatically assumes that Katherina has evil intentions to

injure her sister. As a result, she is chastised automatically, due to the

overpowering partiality towards his favorite daughter: “meddle not with

her. / For shame, thou helding of a devilish spirit” (II.i.25-27). Katherina

does not fight her father back, but rather frankly inquires, “What, will you

not suffer me?” (II.i.31). Her lack of combativeness is followed by a sense of

dejection, due to the overwhelming realization of the stark bias her father

has. “Nay, now I see / She is your treasure” (II.i.31-32). Yet, rather than

remain depressed over her father’s discrimination, she pensively asserts

that Baptista’s blind preference for Bianca will “lead apes in hell” (II.i.34).

Whether or not she is trying to warn the suitors or fight back for herself,

Katherina clearly states that the suitors that Baptista wants to marry off to

her daughter will be marred with devilish suffering. As Gremio has stated

before, a marrying a shrew is the same as being “married to hell;”

Katherina is trying to express that the identity of the vixen has been

misconstrued, pointing the finger to her sister (I.i.56).

The Not-So-Sly Aspects of the Christopher Sly Induction

Christopher Sly, like Katherina, is the product of harsh and

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boundless ridicule and pranks at the hand of others. Both their

characterizations are explained not by the effects of the nature of others,

but rather by the conditioned, negative stimulation from the people who

surround them. Their nature is a product of outside influence: Sly is made

to believe he is a lord because others reinforce the idea; Katherina

supposes she is a shrew because she is constantly labeled as such. The

induction scenes are perfect and powerful images encompassing the

prevalence of deceit, trickery and literary slight of hand seen throughout

the play. We are met with Christopher Sly, a drunkard who has been

convinced successfully that he is a wealthy lord. He serves as a

commentator throughout the play, which is actually a performance put on

for his amusement.

In this sense, the ensuing scenes, specifically the trials and

tribulations of the shrew, can be used as an analogy to Christopher Sly’s

situation, as Katherina’s cycle of denial mimics Sly’s. At the start,

combative boozer, called a “rogue” refuses to play for glasses that he broke

(Induction 1.2). A lord walks into the room where Sly has passed out, and

comments about how he is a “monstrous beast…like a swine” (Induction

1.29). After deciding he wants to play a trick on him, he depicts how to

falsify the appearance of a person by using reverse psychology and

conditioning. Clearly, Sly is not a lord, but “if he were…[w]rapp’d in sweet

clothes…[a]nd brave attendants near him when he wakes, / Would not the

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beggar then forget himself?” (Induction 1.33-37).

The Lord is crafty, however. He makes sure to convince effectively

that Sly is a wealthy man of influence, yet not without subtle hints that it is

a ruse. He lies straightforward to Sly and disproving every statement

signifying that the drunkard is ordinary. The essence of the Lord can be

carried over to the play in three ways. First, this misnomer is parodied

specifically in Act I, scene i, a scene all about reinforcing disguises. Second,

the Lord’s role can be doubled with Petruchio’s: they are both crafty people

who come in unannounced to make a significant overhaul to the lifestyle

and personality of an individual. Third, the Lord makes references to

Roman mythology, showing him a very realistic painting of Jupiter tricking

Io into having relations with him. “We’ll show thee Io as she was a maid /

And how she was beguileèd and surprised, / As lively painted as the deed

was done” (Induction 2. 39-41). This echoes not only the trick the Lord is

playing on Christopher, but also the negative reinforcement Katherina

receives when she is being told she is a shrew, as well as the unsound

justification that Bianca is “fair and virtuous” (II.i.83).

Sly comments frequently throughout the play, reminding the

audience that the events in Padua are occurring for the amusement of a

faux Lord. This could mean as well that the Minola plotline serves as a par

allel and an extended metaphor for the Sly induction scenes. In our specific

performance, we did not include the Sly story, because we did not want to

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take away from our intended themes of the prevalence of womanhood in

literature. The director specifically felt that the induction scenes and the

interjections occurring throughout the play were not necessary to discuss a

theme about the empowerment of women, as the only “woman” in that

scene is a servant in disguise as Sly’s fake wife.

The same parallel revolving the induction with Christopher Sly could

also be drawn to Bianca; essentially, the induction both mirrors and

anchors the stories of Bianca and Katherina. Bianca is constantly framed as

the innocent, fair and virtuous daughter, when in reality she has exhibited

no behaviors proving that element. She lies to her father, torments her

sister, misleads men who are madly in love with her for sport, and elopes

in secret by the dénouement of the play. Just like Sly is a drunkard in the

clothes of a wealthy man, Bianca is a shrew putting on the face of an

innocent. One must realize that there are technically three roles the actress

(or actor, during the time of the play’s conception) playing Bianca is

playing: an actor for Sly’s play, Bianca Minola, and a delicate, blameless

daughter:

We must never for a moment allow ourselves to forget that

The Taming of the Shrew is a play within a play…as in a

different sense in the case of The Murder of Gonzago in

Hamlet—the play within the play is given a simplification and

exaggeration that bring[s]…its minor plot, the story of Bianca’s

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wooers…quite over that edge [of farce] (Goddard 69).

Bianca: The True Shrew

Even though other people in the play label Katherina as a shrew, that

does not mean she is the title character; Bianca sufficiently proves herself

to be as much of a sharp-tongued vixen, if not moreso. I believe

Shakespeare purposefully misleads the audience so they can see that first

appearances are not the soul definition of a person. During the beginning

of Act I, scene i, Katherina does not act like a shrew and one has no reason

to doubt her behavior; she even politely addresses her father and the

suitors as “sir.” After all, as Mark Twain said, “Action speaks louder than

words” (“Mark Twain Quotes”). Only once people begin to murmur about

her insolence does the appearance of the shrew begin to manifest. There is

a definite change in attitude and tone from the time Hortensio says

Katherina should be of a “gentler, milder mold.” However, it can be

construed as frustration that her behavior is being narrowly dictated in

pejorative statements, when she is not truly being understood properly.

Would the play become a more comedic and plausible interpretation

if the title represents Bianca as the shrew? From what we know about her,

Bianca makes it her duty to appease her father, her suitors, and, most

importantly herself. Everyone around her puts her on a pedestal besides

her older sister, who sees straight through the disguise. In reality, I think

Bianca is a shrew. She is a spoiled girl who loves to manipulate those who

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dote on her in order to climb to the top and hook the best, and richest

possible husband. As Katherina states in her closing monologue, fortune, a

good husband and society favor the dutiful wife who “are bound to serve,

love and obey” their husband (V.ii.169). Bianca must conform to the ideal

image of a woman; she puts on the mask and carries on with the

masquerade until she gets what she feels she needs most. “She has to the

casual eye all the outer marks of modesty and sweetness, but to a

discerning one all the inner marks of a spoiled pet, remade, if not originally

made, in her father’s image” (Goddard 69).

By the end of Act V, when she is finally married to the rich,

handsome husband she desired, she longer has to show her falsely colored

feathers to attract the suitors. Due to the fact that her personality is

actually a regression from elegant to foul-mouthed, in spite of her perfect

marriage, it is safe to say that Bianca was never the nice girl everyone

presumed her to be. Bianca’s first lines put a spotlight on Katherina, using

overdramatic undertones to accentuate a dutiful disposition. “Sister,

content you in my discontent. / Sir, to your pleasure humbly I subscribe”

(I.i.80-81). Immediately, she sets herself apart from her sister and aims to

be the object of everyone’s affections.

Ironically as the play goes on, Bianca will be receiving all the

accolades and praises for her “good behavior,” while Katherina is ridiculed

and put down as a shrew. In a unique twist on the classic tale of mistaken

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identity, it dawns upon characters at the end that, in fact, Bianca was the

true vixen. A shrew, by the definition of the Elizabethan Age, could merely

be a determined, outspoken, independent woman:

Strong-willed women were particularly apt to be labeled as

disorderly in early modern towns and villages, even if their

“crimes” involved nothing more than talkativeness. A shrew,

in fact, was commonly defined as a woman with a wagging

tongue who…was not properly submissive to her husband. The

ideal wife, by contrast, was chaste, silent, and obedient

(Howard 163-164).

It is clear that this definition best describes Bianca. This can be evidenced

in Act V scene ii, during the bet Petruchio makes with Hortensio and

Lucentio. At first, Petruchio leads the audience and Baptista to believe that

Katherina is not the shrew. When Baptista tries to apologize for his eldest

daughter, saying to his “son Petruchio” that he believes Petruchio has been

doomed to a life chained to the “veriest shrew of all,” Petruchio confidently

retorts, “well, I say no” (V.ii.64-66).

In order to prove his point, he makes a bet with Hortensio, who has

married the lusty widow, and Lucentio to see which of their three wives

will arrive to their husband. We see Katherina has become tame, because

she does respond to her spouse’s request; however, Bianca does not.

Petruchio’s bet proves that Katherina is dutiful to him, as she comes back

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to him when he calls upon her. Bianca, on the other hand, tells the servant

Biondello to tell Lucentio that, “she is busy and she cannot come” (V.ii.86).

Bianca’s undisputed faith is not only a poor investment for Lucentio, but

also an embarrassment to fellow men of the upper class.

On the stage, the audience can early on become privy to the fact that

Bianca is the shrew and her sister is a victim of her ploy. For example,

during the bondage scene, the actress playing Bianca could overplay the

illusion of innocence and juxtapose it with devious, malevolent

undertones. Although Katherina wants to figure out which of the

“suitors…[she] lovest best,” Bianca underhandedly turns the tables and

poses the same inquiries, while at the same time bullying her sister

(II.i.8-9). “Is it for [Gremio] you do envy me so? / Nay then you jest, and

now I well perceive / You have but jested with me all this while” (II.i.18-20).

If these lines were her attempt at innocent conversation with her sister,

Katherina would not have the impetus to slap her immediately after;

Bianca merely wants to incite anger because it means she has control over

her sister’s emotions

Essentially Bianca is a repressed shrew who tames herself

throughout the entirety of the play. This way, she is shown as a strong

character from the start of the play, as she puts a veil on her true

personality to draw in wooers. In addition, Katherina discovers that she

does not need to be defensive and can rise above her sister’s hurtful ruse.

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She subsequently goes through a rite of passage and overcomes her dark

shadows. This remains closer to later Shakespearean themes; for instance,

in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, before Hermia, Helena, Demetrius and

Lysander go into the forest, they all refuse to commit to the social roles and

obligations that have been decided for them. Yet, once they re-emerge, they

resolve their complications (with a little fairy magic) and find their rightful

niche. This also provides a sense that the characters in both plays have

wholesome, complete arcs to their persona, and don’t fall flat.

From start to finish, Bianca unravels herself and begins to dissolve

the innocent persona she has carried on for so long. She is the only person

in the play whose character progression goes from positive to negative: she

starts off so innocent and innocuous and ends up directly flouting her

husband’s wishes. Lucentio first notices Bianca at the beginning of Act I,

and, just like in Romeo and Juliet, immediately falls in love with her

without her saying a word. “But in the other’s silence do I see / Maid’s mild

behavior and sobriety” (I.i.70-71). The director wanted my character to

notice the actor playing Lucentio earlier on in the scene, immediately

starting a connection.

Throughout Act I scene i, I made the choice to make a point of trying

to flirt and play games with Lucentio without ever speaking to him. I

accomplished this by directing my physicality and tone of voice with

Gremio and Hortensio to be done in a coquettish way. I wanted my

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rendition to give Lucentio a combination of longing, desire, jealousy and

curiosity that would cause him to want to court and pursue me in the

future. I had in my mind that Bianca was someone who not only thought

she had infinite power through influence over everyone, but wanted to test

that as much as possible. By teasing Lucentio without having any lines, I

would portray early that Bianca knows what she wants and is able to get it

at any cost.

The manipulation angle I used with Lucentio is a similar tactic I used

with my interactions with Katherina. During our performance of the

beginning of Act II scene i, Katherina tries to face her demon sister (me)

and force her to expose if she prefers Hortensio or Gremio. Yet, rather than

be intimidated by Katherina’s forceful behavior, I begin to mock her by

sarcastically saying I know to obey her “elders,” and refuse to directly

answer her simple questions (II.i.7). I believe Bianca attempts to

manipulate her older sister and pretend to be innocent, while at the same

time threatening that she will face consequences:

BIANCA

Good sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself,

To make a bondmaid and a slave of me;

That I disdain: but for these other gawds,

Unbind my hands, I’ll pull them off myself,

Yea, all my raiment, to my petticoat;

Or what you command me will I do…

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You have but jested with me all this while:

I prithee, sister Kate, untie my hands (II.i.1-6, 20-21).

During the scene, I would fluctuate my body language, as well as

vocals, in order to exemplify that my innocent persona was merely a

façade for my father and the suitors. From the line “Good sister, wrong me

not nor wrong yourself,” until “Or what you command me will I do,” I

would allow myself to be dragged along, while wincing in pain and

speaking in a high-pitched, damsel in distress fashion. In addition, I would

raise my voice, break character, and look around the space during certain

lines such as “bondmaid and a slave of me” (II.i.1-6). Bianca is so

manipulative that she would be trying reach out to anyone who is

listening—specifically her father—in order to get Katherina in trouble. As I

realized that she would not give in, I eventually would begin to resist being

pulled. I used my normal, deeper voice, in order to highlight the line, “So

well I know my duty to my elders” as a jarring insult (II.i.7).

Throughout the scene, I made a point of laughing every single time

Katherina tried to influence pain by dragging the ropes that tied me. I

wanted to showcase that Bianca was a bit of a sociopath, taking pleasure in

pushing her sister to the peak of her anger. Frustrated with Bianca’s

behavior, Katherina, who is at the peak of her rational frustration, slaps

Bianca. At this moment, the director found it pertinent for me to be

slapped, gasp dramatically, take a pause to look around, smile and then

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loudly fake cry. He thought it best to echo that Bianca is not only a true

shrew, but also inherently very immature, and devilishly constructs

elaborate situations for Katherina to fail. This prompts Baptista to enter

and only see that I have just been cuffed. Baptista immediately points the

blame to Katherina without knowing that I had been taunting her sister the

entire scene. Baptista is commonly regarded as male role; yet, since we

wanted to discuss themes of women in literature, and since The Taming of

the Shrew was written during the time of Queen Elizabeth I, the director

wanted to make sure the most powerful nominal character in the play was

a woman.

In our play, the director made a choice to use a woman to play

Baptista, making the daughters of a single mother. He chose to do this

because it would create a bleaker reasoning for Katherina’s neglect if she

were devoid of maternal protection not out of choice, but out of

circumstance. The actress playing Baptista, a classics professor named

Karelisa Hartigan, perfectly exemplified the behaviors of an apathetic

mother to Katherina, and a loving matriarch to Bianca; this prompted most

of Sunny’s behaviors throughout the play. After Baptista entered, she

became protective and said, “Bianca, stand aside. Poor girl! she weeps,”

after which she pushed me behind her protectively. I would be making

malicious faces at Katherina while at the same time laughing, and every

time Baptista looked back at me, I would look like I was sobbing

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uncontrollably. Poor Katherina is even trying to warn her mother that

Bianca is mocking her, but he won’t believe her. “Why dost thou wrong her

that did ne’er wrong thee? / When did she cross thee with a bitter word?”

(II.i.22-29).

The scene’s tone can be both comical and tragic. For comedic

purposes, I wanted to showcase the over exaggerated gestures of Bianca

making fun of Katherina behind Baptista’s back. However, I wanted to

reach out to the audience members that have had a situation when a

sibling has intentionally manipulated a parent to the expense of the elder.

When it comes down to the subtext, Baptista’s automatic jingoistic

behavior is truly tragic, as it tears the fabric of a cohesive family unit in the

play. I did not want the audience to sympathize with Bianca, because I

wanted to portray her as fundamentally an archetypal, recognizable shrew

. That way, when the play ended, it would be more of a textual reveal to

merely the characters on stage that Bianca was actually disobedient, rather

than take away from Katherina’s right of passage.

Bianca’s “mild behavior and sobriety” remains strong during the

courting scene between Lucentio and herself, but begins to dissipate

(I.i.71). She directly refutes his first impression of her, to which he

subscribes to willful ignorance based on first impressions, at the end of Act

V. “The more fool you for laying on my duty” (V.ii.133). Even though one

can see she has a strong attraction to Lucentio, she is trying to string him

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along just like every guy to see how devoted he is to her. She allows him to

get close to her, but she plays games with him and pushes him away at the

same time, because she wants him to chase her:

Now let me see if I can construe it: ‘Hic ibat

Simois,’ I know you not, ‘hic est Sigeia tellus.’ I

Trust you not; ‘Hic steterat Priami,’ take heed

He hear us not, ‘regia,’ presume not, ‘celsa senis,’

Despair not (III.i.40-43).

This response to Lucentio’s proclamation of love can be understood in two

ways: Either Bianca is not amused by the cheeky tactics he is using in order

to get close to her, or she is madly in love with Lucentio and does not want

Hortensio/Licio to hear the conversation. Bianca actually explains later on

that, while she does not currently trust that Lucentio is right for her, she

will take the time to ponder the idea (III.i.49). Meanwhile, the nature of the

shrew comes out as she continues to let the men fight for her hand.

Bianca’s unruly, rebellious nature seems to be peeking to the surface

at the same time as Katherina’s shift to dutiful wife. Hortensio, who is

madly in love with Bianca, begins to open his eyes and see the selfishness

behind the beauty; he vows to find another woman who will treat him with

the affection he deserves. “Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks,

shall win my love” (IV.ii.41-42). Before Act V, Bianca elopes with Lucentio,

which diametrically opposes her Act I promise to “humbly…subscribe” to

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Baptista. Instead, she dishonors her father’s right to approve of her

marriage (I.i.81). He is angry, but Lucentio comforts her in saying that her

“father will not frown” upon her disobedience, because she is very heavily

favored (V.i.118). These are not an admirable characteristic to have, as it

does foreshadow her weakness—that she hates to lose her power and

influence. When Lucentio challenges her behaviorisms in Act V during the

bet with Petruchio, she becomes recalcitrant, combative, and begins to shut

out her husband.

In Act V scene ii, during her wedding party, she speaks angrily

against Hortensio and Petruchio making a bet against their wives. In a

clever retort tying in past metaphors, Bianca insults Petruchio by saying,

“Am I your bird? I mean to shift my bush; / And then pursue me as you

draw your bow” (V.ii.47-48). Back in Act IV, Petruchio compared Katherina

to a “falcon…sharp and passing empty” that he would capture using his

taming skills (IV.i.170). He later metaphorically talks to his wife about his

sister, saying that, in spite of Bianca’s beauty, Katherina is the one worth

marrying. “What is the jay more precious than the lark, / Because his

feathers are more beautiful?” (IV.iii.169-170). As if Bianca heard what he

was saying in previous scenes, she wittily and conceitedly informs

Petruchio that, if she is his new target of interest, then she will make sure

to not be in the line of sight for his ‘arrow.’ She even brings about her ‘pure

white’ façade once more while sarcastically thanking the group, not for

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attending her wedding, but for attending her behavioral ‘coming out’ party

(V.ii.47-49). The fact that she is discussing sexual witticisms at all shows

how unhinged she has turned out to be.

When Lucentio tries to call her back to the party in order to win a

bet with the other husbands, the shrew really does come out and she sends

a servant back without her (V.ii.85-86). Petruchio capitalizes on this, as he

is trying to prove (successfully) that Katherina is not the “froward” sister

(something Tranio mentioned back in Act I); in contrast, Bianca most

definitely is proving to be the more erratic of the two (V.ii.123-124). She

thinks that it was “foolish” of Lucentio to ever think that she was a

submissive and devoted wife; in reality, it was witless of him to constantly

pay attention to her looks, rather than uncover the true nature of her

personality. Bianca chastises him for not only relying on her to be

subservient, but for ignorantly expecting her to conform to a norm

(V.ii.129-133).

Throughout this scene, I made sure my body language was

completely closed off and evocative of a woman who was not pleased. I

wanted to show that Bianca was as spoiled as she ever was. My dress was

dark—a metaphorical element that the shrew has taken over—and my

voice had completely lost its innocent, airy pitch. I was seated next to

Lucentio, but my legs were crossed and shaking as I crossed my arms; I also

had a very foul grimace on my face at the entire scene, showing that I was

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not pleased by the way the women—myself included—were being treated.

When I confronted the actor playing Petruchio, I made sure to actually

project anger in my voice, demeanor and enunciation. I made sure to

punch out consonants to show that I was not pleased with the way that

Petruchio was trying to condemn all the women in the room to subjection.

When I left after, “You are welcome all,” (which I said in a very

sarcastic undertone), I snapped my fingers and bid the widow and

Katherina to follow me (V.ii.49). I wanted to show Petruchio that I, a

woman, can and do hold command over myself, and will not allow anyone

to censor that. Of course, when Katherina dragged me back in after

Petruchio bade her to, I counterbalanced that by having her drag me in by

my ear through the crowd. It was a public shaming and a sign that the

older sister finally can get control of the younger, the bane of her existence

for so long. I immediately went and slapped Lucentio during “The more

fool you for laying on my duty,” in order to regain some seldom of solace

over the humiliation (V.ii.133). I immediately went back to my chair,

ignored the rest of the cast, and played with my nails until Katherina’s

monologue. Throughout the time, I would roll my eyes and laugh at certain

parts, specifically the lines, “And when she is forward, peevish, sullen,

sour, / And not obedient to his honest will, / What is she but a foul

contending rebel” because I wanted the audience to know that Bianca

realizes that those lines are about her, not about Katherina (V.ii.161-163).

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At the end of the play, Lucentio is stunned by Bianca’s behavior.

Petruchio rubs it in that he is completely on his own with an untamed wife,

saying that, by only concentrating on the beauty of Bianca, he missed the

target of what makes a good wife altogether and “hit the white” instead (a

play on Bianca’s name). As a result, he lost the gamble: when everyone

thought Petruchio was marrying the shrew, no one realized Katherina

would end up more well-rounded than her sister. Lucentio remarks, “’Tis a

wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so” (V.ii.189-193). The “she” in

question is not just Katherina, who Hortensio was mentioning in the

previous line; Lucentio is now thinking about how he can go about taming

his wife. During this line, I looked at him, groaned, rolled my eyes, and

continued to play with my nails while my legs and arms were crossed.

Cleverly, Shakespeare sets a subtle precedence for the fact that

Lucentio would not be able to truly harness Bianca to be the dutiful wife he

wants her to be. Even though Tranio is not on the same monetary status as

his companion, he is very wise and accurate with his analysis of the

relationship between Lucentio and Bianca in Act I. He suggests to his

friend that the way to get close to his love is to “undertake [her] teaching.”

Teaching could be substituted for taming in this sense, as both revolve

around the idea to harness and cultivate something. However, when

Lucentio asks if he would be successful in his endeavors (“may it be

done?”), Tranio retorts “not possible” (I.i.185-188). Shakespeare warns

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subtly through Tranio that Bianca will not be taught or tamed.

The façade of the innocent, perfectly behaved daughter—created in

order to spite her sister and appease her father—disappears by the end of

The Taming of the Shrew. This mystical image is fortified by the fact that

all the characters in the play besides Katherina only mention Bianca’s

physical descriptions, rather than her personality traits. This pattern is

subsequently quenched when Hortensio, a man who swears his undying

love for the stunning Bianca, extinguishes his adoration. He sees that she is

misleadingly identified as the object of his affections, as she is truly cruel

under her beauty, and his epitome causes him to break her spell. “Kindness

in women, not their beauteous looks, / Shall win my love” (IV.ii.41-42).

Hortensio’s rue for his adoration of Bianca has been seen in past literature

and history. Similarly to Helen of Troy (who Bianca is compared to

throughout the play), once Bianca elopes with Lucentio, her mask as the

dutiful daughter comes off, and she proves to the guests at her wedding

that she can’t be tamed.

There were several effectively placed metaphors to the Greek Myths

used throughout The Taming of the Shrew, namely between Bianca and

Helen of Troy. Helen, who was the product of an affair between Zeus and a

mortal, and was revered for her beauty. Helen was a married woman, but

because she eloped with a man named Paris, the Trojan War began

(“Helen”). Correspondingly, Bianca is known as, “The patroness of

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heavenly harmony,” or the perfect combination between man and god

(III.i.5). The Latin that Lucentio teaches to Bianca in the tutoring scene—“

Hic ibat Simois; hic est Sigeia tellus; / Hic steterat Priami regia celsa senis”

—also draws lines between Shakespeare and the Greek texts (III.i.28-29).

The translates to talk about Priam, who not only was the last king of Troy,

but was also the father of Paris, Helen’s lover (Weller). Helen was also

known as being “both an innocent victim of the gods and a deceitful wife”

(“Helen”). Analogously, Bianca can be viewed as the irreproachable

daughter of a wealthy man, but becomes a shrewish wife to Lucentio by

Act V.

In addition to the juxtaposition to Helen, Lucentio tends to draw

similarities between his love for Bianca and Greek myths; however, his

conclusions tend to support that Bianca is a shrew, not an innocent

goddess. In act I scene i, lines 142-152, he tries to compare himself to Dido

and Tranio to Anna. Dido’s lover is Aeneas, who is a wanderer, mates with

Dido and cares for her until he has to leave. Dido commits suicide, feeling

like a fool for believing that the two were married as a result of the mating

process. He looks back and sees her “funeral pyre,” but he sails to Italy

anyways (“Dido”). This is an indicator that, by falling for Bianca, Lucentio

will, metaphorically, burn at the steak after being fooled by her beauty,

and she allows him to do so without hesitation.

Tranio tries to talk Lucentio into turning his senses straight, as he

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knows nothing about Bianca besides how she looks. “Master, you look’d so

longly on the maid, / Perhaps you mark’d not what’s the pith of all”

(I.i.159-160). Tranio is right; Lucentio is missing the whole point. He makes

grandiloquent statements about mythical figures, and does not seem to

understand the meaning behind them. He illogically compares himself to

Jove and Bianca to the beautiful Europa. Jove raped the woman that loved

him, echoing that Lucentio is thinking very irrationally about any form of

mental coherency. He sees only Bianca’s face, not who she is truly inside; in

addition, he completely forgets that Katherina is an obstacle he must

overcome in order to be with Bianca. He is only looking upon the surface of

things, which will lay the setting going into his marriage blindly.

Franco Zeffirelli’s 1967 film rendition of The Taming of the Shrew is

a direct example of an interpretation portraying Bianca as the untainted

foil for her evil sister. Natasha Pyne’s portrayal of Bianca required her to

wear bright blue colors, which visually evoked her innocent persona; she

had fair skin, light hair and is quiet and unsullied. The opening scene alone

shows Katherina constantly yelling obscenities to her sister and father, as

well as anyone in the town. The portrayal leaves her without any

redeeming qualities, as her behavior towards her younger, meek sister is

completely unjustifiable.

It is only when Katherina slams a window and breaks glass that

Bianca breaks from her angelic state, chastising her sister with the words,

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“Sister, content you at my discontent” while raising her voice. She then

consoles herself and calmly tells her father that she is going to study

(I.i.79-83). Baptista shows himself to be very overprotective of his Bianca,

cringing in fear of his eldest daughter (The Taming of the Shrew). This

eliminates the comedic aspects and slightly shifts the movie to a more

dramatic rendition. “Above all, Katherina and Petruchio are the

Burton-Taylor couple – rowing and fighting, divorcing and remarrying, but

always in love and always to be reunited….It seems therefore merely

appropriate and natural as [Katherina and] Petruchio should [have]…

aggression an hostility enacted between them” (Holderness 69).

As with visual imagery in the film, I felt it was important to dress my

character in a way that evoked her true personality. I decided to pull

themes from other productions I saw, as well as add my own twist based

off of my new discoveries about my character. To pay homage to the name

Bianca, I wore a white dress with flowers, as any innocent, pure girl would.

However, I decided to use a dark colored sash to subtly create a metaphor

for the darkness of the shrew within the harmless exterior. During the

beginning of the play, it was tied in a neat bow at my waist; then, it was

used as a scarf during the courting scene between Hortensio and Lucentio

in Act III scene i. I played with the stole during the scene to accent its shift

closer to my face, which is the object of attraction to the men. I chose to do

this because I felt that the closer the dark scarf was to where I was

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speaking, the more I was allowing Bianca’s true self to be shown. At the

culmination of the play, I was wearing a dark blue dress that was the same

color of the shawl, to show that Bianca’s character development shifts from

false innocence to outright disobedience.

Another ingredient to the picture I was trying to exhibit was the

nonverbal communication I used throughout the play. During Act I, scene i,

the director had Katherina lunge at Bianca after the line, “A pretty peat! It

is best put finger in the eye, and she knew why” (Taming I.i.80-1).

Considering I was portraying Bianca as the bratty, annoying younger sister,

I wanted to give cause for this attack, to allay the idea that Katherina was

inherently a shrew. I was staged behind Baptista so she (we used a female

during this production) could not see that I was making faces at Katherina

and laughing at her in plain sight to the audience. I wanted to ensure that

no one on stage besides Katherina could see that I was trying to engage her

temper, in order to initiate the adverse reaction that subsequently ensued.

Throughout the rest of the scene, whenever any other character would look

at me, I would be walking in dainty steps and have an innocent form to the

way I stood, very similarly to Scarlett O’Hara. I imagined there to be a

string at the top of my head, and I held the scissors to snap it at any

moment.

Bianca is the foil character for Katherina, so I would do my best to

hold up to that ideal by being the complete opposite of “the shrew.” Even

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though Bianca has proven herself to be disdainful and self-centered,

making her the more modern interpretation of a shrew, she convincingly

put on the hat of the consummate bride. Both Bianca and Katherina’s

surface behavior is the product of outside stimuli molding specific

reactions. These incentives are the core creation behind the personalities

behind both sisters; nurture from the outside world is what drives them

apart and brings them together. Bianca wants a rich husband, so she acts

sincere and sweet. Katherina does not like being ridiculed, so she fights

back for herself. I thought of Bianca as a victim of circumstance based on

the marriage ban Baptista set for her, yet someone who remained positive,

cheery and loving in spite of it.

However, I started to recognize that Bianca’s character has no arc if

she is played as a victim of Katherina’s rudeness and her father’s marriage

embargo. Of all the charismatic and comedic characters in the cast, an

innocent “white” Bianca is the most flat, uninteresting character in the

play. I realized while trying to work off of my other actors that my acting

fell flat, due to the fact that my mindset was to be as innocent as possible.

Lines like “Sister, content you in my discontent” I felt were made to be

played in an ironic sense; in reality, Bianca is satisfied that Katherina is

unhappy and full of resentment (I.i.80). It was too easy to just be nice all

the time, and the effects were agonizing, because it had an empty

motivation. Even with the bondage scene between Katherina and Bianca, I

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evoked my character’s responses as dutiful to her sister, and forgiving of

the fact that she is spiteful, and it felt very unnatural. I took the line “of all

the men alive / I never yet beheld that special face / Which I could fancy

more than any other” to mean that Bianca was talking about Katherina

herself, in a ruse to make her sister think that she idolizes her (II.i.10-12).

Due to the fact that I wanted to subtly highlight my interpretation

that Bianca was the manipulative, recalcitrant title character, I made sure

to keep on appearances as much as possible while in the presence of the

suitors Gremio and Hortensio. The actors playing Hortensio and Gremio

were not only much older than me, but also they acted extremely strange

and unrestrained, in order to clearly emphasize that they were not only

infatuated with Bianca, but that she would never be interested in them in

return. Hortensio and Gremio are both fighting for Bianca’s love, and she

eagerly plays along. She is the devil herself pinning the two men on each

other when she is not even romantically interested in either of them.

At the start of the play, I was very flirtatious with the two characters

because I wanted to underline that she truly is interested in a suitor for

their money (until she meets Lucentio). During Act I scene i when

Katherina tries to attack at her sister, I purposefully hide behind Gremio

and Hortensio and pretend to be frightened. That way, everyone would

come to her defense and absolve her of any blame, while at the same time

instilling a glimmer of hope that the suitors have a chance (I.i.78-83).

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Bianca truly just wants to be told she is beautiful and fair as much as

possible and, the more that Hortensio and Gremio believe they have a

chance, the less likely they will ever stop. However, I mentally strategized

that the shift from coquettish behavior with the suitors to only with

Lucentio happens when she meets eyes with Lucentio right before she exits

in Act I.

The next time Bianca is in a scene with any of her suitors is Act III

scene i, the tutoring scene. Gremio, the old wealthy man, is—in the mind of

Baptista—directly pitted against the young “Lucentio” (who is actually

Tranio). Meanwhile, Bianca is not aware of the arrangement and prepares

for the tutoring session with Licio (Hortensio) and Cambio (Lucentio). I felt

a very definitive way to define the identity of Bianca was through this

scene, as her interaction with her two suitors was a perfect example of the

self-centered, obnoxious behavior of a shrew.

We entered the stage with the two men escorting me and fighting as

to who gets to carry/set my chair to the center of the stage. This was an

obvious play on the comedy, but it overlaid a deeper meaning of how

Bianca is enjoying the fact that she is able to control and exploit the men

around her. In my mind, Bianca knew the entire time that Lucentio and

Hortensio were the tutors; it would have been too innocent if she allowed

someone to be one step ahead of her, as the only person who is, and who is

allowed to be, in control of Bianca is herself. I believe she echoes this in the

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line, “Why, gentlemen, you do me double wrong, / To strive for that which

resteth in my choice;” for my perception, the first part of the line indicated

that they thought she would choose between them (both as suitors and

tutors), when in reality she wants Lucentio/Cambio (III.i.16-18).

Secondly, she is both amused and annoyed that they believe they

could fool her with their disguises, as ultimately, it is not their wooing that

will win her over, it is her desire. Bianca lets the two men know as tutors

and as suitors that she prefers to “not be tied to hours nor ‘pointed times, /

But learn [her] lessons as I please[s] [her]self” (III.i.18-20). The term

“lessons” could be viewed as either a tutoring plan, or, more likely, morals

and guides for life. Bianca will not be tamed by a man once she is married,

which is proven by her exigent behavior at the end of Act V. Within my

acting motivations, I wanted to make sure that my character’s morals all

boiled down to those four lines.

In order to exemplify the behavior of the shrew, I contrastingly

conducted myself in a very polite and equitable manner; understandably,

the appropriate façade calls for demureness in order to keep up with the

plan to lure the richest, most handsome man in or beyond Padua. I allowed

Bianca to be diplomatic and to hear out both men’s pleas for her love. She

most definitely was more intrigued by Lucentio’s offers to her, as he fits

her idealist standard: a young, rich, charming notable member of society. It

is ironic that Lucentio is reciting his admiration for Bianca in the midst of

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lines that discuss King Priam, the father of Paris, as it foreshadows their

imminent elopement.

Already, the audience knows it is too late for poor Hortensio, who

does not have the competitive suave couth necessary to win over the object

of his desire. When he offers to play music for her and she brushes it off

because the “treble jars,” she and Lucentio both echo a very rude tone in

order to annex Hortensio (III.i.34). Subconsciously, I would only

concentrate on Lucentio and forget that Hortensio was there in the first

place, ergo becoming more irritated every time he approached me. This

was a drastic change from Act I scene i, when I hid behind the actor who

played Hortensio and knowingly was leading him on in order to receive

more attention. My alteration in behavior towards him helped to create a

precedent for the actor playing Hortensio gain the pity of the audience

during his resolution to give up Bianca in Act IV scene ii. When he “firmly

vow[s] / Never to woo her more … [and] forswear her / As one unworthy all

the former favors / That I have fondly flattered her withal” the audience

began to vocalize their disappointment at his sadness in a resounding

“aww” (IV.ii.29-33). The commiseration the crowd gave him helped me to

further clarify that Bianca is not blameless, as she create a path of

destruction in her selfishness.

Another shift in character I decided to include in the play was my

vocal progression. By the end of the play, I completely eliminated the fake

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high-pitched vocals of the innocent little girl. After she gets what she wants,

which is marriage to a rich man (whom I believe she essentially does love),

I thought it best to completely eliminate the disguise of the guiltless girl in

front of her father, and thus the faux stereotypical vocal patter of the

blameless Bianca. I wanted to surprise the characters on stage that the

pure Bianca, now made a wife, would be a deeper toned, sassy, and

combative and would not take orders from anyone, including her husband.

Now that she was no longer in her father’s corner, she could be liberated

and allow the witty, nasty and rude personality to no longer hide itself.

This reinstates the idea of the title of The Taming of the Shrew to

mean the subdual of the vixen; Bianca waits until Act V to unwind and

unravel, thus exposing her true behavior. If these progressions of vocals,

body language, and costume changes were done subtly throughout the

play, just as it was done throughout my performance, it would not be a

sudden shock that she would not come to her husband when he beckons

her. The seed would have been subconsciously planted for the audience so

they would be unknowingly realizing that Bianca undergoes a transition

from light to dark. Bianca’s wayward behavior also creates a precedent for

Lucentio’s line at the end of the play, “But a harsh hearing when woman

are froward” (V.ii.192). Playing on the word “hearing,” I wanted it to mean

both what she was saying and how she was saying it. After it’s already too

late, Lucentio realizes that the woman whose beauty he was coveting had

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an actual personality lying within her true face.

Conclusion

William Shakespeare can cultivate his words in ways that render

direct, absolute, and narrow-minded interpretations as insufficient for his

works. The beautiful thing that encompasses his works is that, each time

one reads the lines, new ideas, facets, tones and definitions are discovered.

From person to person, and from perusal to perusal, nothing remains

exactly the same; there is always more than one way to absorb and

construe the text. It does not mean that one individual’s analysis and

conclusion is incorrect and another’s is ideal, but rather that the fact that

multiple elucidations exist concurrently.

This project’s main goal was not to disparage Shakespeare’s play The

Taming of the Shrew, but rather to offer new light and interpretation to the

famed text. In any and most cases, one might construe Katherina as the

shrew. That is a fair and equitable choice to make, as her lines and actions

can most definitely be directly viewed as impulsively aggressive. However,

based on the textual evidence and personal experiences playing Bianca

Minola included, I wanted to offer a different facet of the same story, one

that was read in between the lines. I wanted to portray Katherina as the

victim of her unfortunately biased circumstances, and Bianca as the

spoiled brat who wants to watch her fall. Personally, it felt more natural

acting Bianca in this light, in spite of the overwhelming evidence in years

Tzur Honors Thesis

42

of stage, film, and spin-off editions. Moreover, these deductions should

fully demonstrate that there is no wrong way to read Shakespeare’s

literature—except, of course, not to read his works at all.

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shakespeareslife001720mbp#page/n77/mode/2up>. (Accessed

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Bean, John C. "Comic Structure and the Humanizing of Kate in The Taming

Tzur Honors Thesis

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of the

Shrew." The Woman's Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Ed.

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Shakespeare.

[Chicago]: University of Chicago, 1951. 68-73. Print.

Heilman, R. B. "The Taming Untamed, Or, The Return of The Shrew*." 

Modern

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. Web. <mlq.dukejournals.org>. (Accessed November 4, 2013).

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Holderness, Graham. The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare in

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Manchester: Manchester UP, 1989. Print.

Howard, Jean E. “The Taming of the Shrew.” The Norton Shakespeare. Ed.

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The Taming of the Shrew. Dir. Franco Zeffirelli. Perf. Elizabeth Taylor and

Richard

Burton. RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video, 1967. DVD.

Weller, Phillip. "Notes to Act 3, Scene 1." Shakespeare Navigators. Web. <

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www.shakespeare-navigators.com/shrew/ShrewNotes31.html>. (Ac

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45