Gender Roles In Taming Of The Shrew

Shakespeare’s ‘Taming Of The Shrew’ is about two men, Grumio and Hortensio, who wish to marry Bianca, A gorgeous, young woman. However, she is not allowed to marry until her hot tempered older sister Katherina has found a husband. A man named Petruchio decides to take upon the challenge of ‘taming’ her to be a loyal and obedient wife. There are two main themes in ‘Taming Of The Shrew’ which are gender roles and also Marriage. The gender roles shown are stereotypically how woman and men should behave in the 16th century and how Katherina breaks these stereotypes. Marriage is also stereotypically shown in this movie/play showing how most men treat marriage as a business transaction whilst woman are often traded.

Gender roles are shown all throughout this play/movie. First of all the title ‘Taming Of The Shrew’ relates to how Petruchio is trying to “tame” Katherina and changing her into a stereotypical wife of the 16th century. This stereotypical wife is obedient and submissive which is much like Bianca, Katherina’s younger sister. Katherine tends to rebel against the stereotype of an obedient wife and speaks her mind. She refuses
There are lots of different views about marriage throughout the play but the main one is quite stereotypical for the 16th century as Petruchio is trying to change Katherina to become more submissive. People in the play also see marriage as a financial transaction or just a union of two people in love (Lucentio and Bianca). For Petruchio and Katherina, marriage is just a power structure as Petruchio is trying to force female obedience to a male husband. In the end once Petrucio has broken Katherina’s spirit she makes a final speech about her thoughts on marriage to her sister Bianca. She refers to Petruchio as "Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, / Thy head, thy