Taming Of The Shrew As A Misogynistic Play

When Shakespeare wrote his plays in the 16th century, he did not mean for the audience to read them directly from the script, rather he wanted the audience to enjoy the performance seen on stage. This is why he provides very few stage directions and in fact very few descriptions of the characters themselves. Therefore, there is no way to produce single, constant production of the play. It is up to the director of the production, or even the imaginations of the readers, to create their own interpretation of what Shakespeare was trying to portray. This freedom of interpretation can be seen in the many theatrical productions of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.
Even providing a brief synopsis of this drama completely depends on an individual’s
Kate not only comes immediately when she is summoned, but she also delivers a very long speech, the longest in the play, about the wife’s duty to bend to the will of their husbands and chastises her fellow women for not doing so. There are questions raised about whether or not The Taming of the Shrew is a misogynistic or a feministic play. However, the interpretation of Kate’s final speech really determines whether or not the play becomes a comedy, a tragedy, or a tragicomedy. There are only ten more lines of the entire play left after Kate concludes her monologue, so the speech is very important in setting the mood of the conclusion of the drama. The interpretation of Kate’s speech will consequently effect how the play in its entirety could be
Because the script of the drama itself does not detail how the play should be performed or interpreted, it is up to the director to make the decisive instructions. Thus, “to perform a play is, inevitably, to interpret it”. The reading of Kate’s final speech is quite complicated because there are many different version of it that could be completely reasonable. There is no general agreement about whether it satirizes societal treatment of women or whether Kate and Petruchio were conspiring together or whether Kate was completely brainwashed by her abusive husband. However, in the end of all productions, Kate seems to have been tamed in some way, whether it be farce or unfortunate truth. Although there may be different construals of her speech, one thing is for certain in all: Kate may have been tamed, but she has not been