Taming of the Shrew Planning:                                                                       10th

Katherina Quotes:

‘If i be waspish best beware my sting’ – Katherina

‘Katharina the curst! A title for a maid of all titles the worst’ – Grumio

‘But will you woo this wild-cat?’ – Gremio

‘Why, and I trust I may go too, may I not? What,
shall I be appointed hours; as though, belike, I
knew not what to take and what to leave, ha?’ – Katherina

Moved! in good time: let him that moved you hither
Remove you hence: I knew you at the first
You were a moveable. – Katherina

‘PETRUCHIO
My remedy is then, to pluck it out.
KATHARINA
Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies.’ – Questions a male, labels him as a ‘fool’.

So may you lose your arms:
If you strike me, you are no gentleman;
And if no gentleman, why then no arms. – Katherina

Language Devices in the poem:

The play’s full of animal imagery, relates to the training and domestication of animals and treats women as if men were hunting game. Kate,is referred to throughout the play as a “shrew,” a derogatory term for opinionated and aggressive women that derives its name from a small, feisty animal. Punning on the name “Kate” and “cat,” Petruchio decides to turn Kate from a ‘wild’ to a ‘household’ so she will be tamed.Petruchio aligns Kate with a ‘ass’ and later compares her to a falcon he must starve and deprive of sleep for him to tame.

Conflict –

Baptista says Petruchio can marry Kate but Kate hates Petruchio and continues to be a shrew.


Complication –

Petruchio shows up late for the wedding ceremony and then proceeds to act like wild and crazy when he arrives. Once married, Kate becomes his legal “property,” so she has to do what Petruchio says.

Suspense –

Everybody says Kate is still a shrew. Petruchio bets that she’s the most obedient wife.

At Bianca’s wedding banquet, the wedding guests tease Petruchio about his shrewish wife. So, Petruchio makes a wager– whoever has the most obedient wife wins cash.

Rhythm –

In certain parts of the book, shakespeare uses rhythm to give a flow to the words more elegant individuals say or when a conversation/argument is flowing as displayed below.

KATHARINA: “Asses are made to bear, and so are you.”
PETRUCHIO: “Women are made to bear, and so are you.”
KATHARINA: “No such jade as you, if me you mean.”
PETRUCHIO: “Alas, good Kate, I will not burden thee,/For knowing thee to be but young and light.”
KATHARINA: “Too light for such a swain as you to catch,/And yet as heavy as my weight should be.”
PETRUCHIO: “Should be? Should-buzz!”KATHARINA: “Well ta’en, and like a buzzard.”

Iambic Pentameter –

Iambic pentameter is used in the taming of the shrew to show characters of a higher rank in the hierarchy or at a higher standing in the scene

“That have by marriage made thy daughter mine
While counterfeit supposes bleared thine eyne” – Lucentio

“Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband’s foot,
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready, may it do him ease.” – Katherine

The Tone – Tone of the play is playful in general, fast paced and witty combining most features above.

Dramatic devices.

Asides –

Shakespeare keeps the plot moving by using asides, a technique in which a character turns away from dialogue with another character and directs his speech toward the audience. In Act Four, Scene Three, Petruchio tells the audience in an aside about his expectations he has Katherine’s return to her father’s house.

Language –

Lucentio uses Latin to woo BIanca, while Petruchio verbally courts — or rather, subdues — Katharine. The characters who are most adept at language are the most interesting ones in the play. This is especially true in the sparring matches between Petruchio and Katherine.

Soliloquy –

In the play’s final scene, Katherine is alone on stage and speaks her thoughts aloud in a soliloquy that describes the proper duties of a wife. Instead of taking her words at face-value, it is best to think of her speech in terms of its ironic nature. Her soliloquy provides dramatic symmetry to the play by framing and answering Lucentio’s opening monologue.

Dramatic Irony  –

Dramatic irony is when the audience knows something that the characters on stage do not, usually this used for comedic effect.  One of the funniest scenes, in my opinion is the one when the real Vincentio shows up.  Because of the disguising and pretending to be other people, everyone thinks that the old guy is Vincentio and Tranio is Lucentio, so when the real Vincentio shows up no one believes him, and he assumes that Tranio has killed his master the real Lucentio, and taken his place.

In the taming of the shrew, there is a vast difference between the kind of disrespect Petruchio shows and the kind of disrespect Katherina shows to the people. The disrespect Katherina shows to the people around her is more of a defensive stance and tried to stick up for herself whereas Petruchio is more up front and decides to insult others and the things others have done or taken part in. – Petruchio is like the image of Plath’s father; insulting, strong, attacking, powerful…

Techniques in the poem Daddy:

Repetition –

ICH,ICH,ICH.
And my taroc pack, and my taroc pack.
Jew, Jew.
Black heart, Colour Black.
Daddy, Daddy You.

Rhyming –

You, ach du.

The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.
You do not do, you do not do.

So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue                    – Use of color to show love to her father.
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.

Any more, black shoe
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
So black no sky could squeak through.
You stand at the blackboard, daddy,                     – Use of black to show disgust/hatred.
A man in black with a Meinkampf look
The black telephone’s off at the root.

For thirty years, poor and white
The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna

– Use of white to show her weakness, killed like a Jew/Contrasts herself with her father.

Iambic Pentameter – Iambic Pentameter is not regularly used in this poem. e.g.

You do not do, you do not do.

Any more, black shoe Ghastly statue.

Aim of the poem –

Builds up strong hatred aimed at someone. The Dachau was one of the first gas chambers,opened under Hitler. The Dachau Concentration Camp officially opened on Wednesday, March 22, 1933.

In ‘Daddy’ Plath seems to have gained more aggressive and disturbing feelings towards her father “every woman adores a fascist”,Plath’s bitterness towards her father only really surfaced after realising that she had married someone like him. Which could mean an abusive marriage, as she describes her father this way.

Historical themes:

In the play, the main historical theme is the fact that women were like possessions to men. Women had no rights after marriage. Another funnily used historic reference is when Sly claims he is honourable and descended from ‘Richard the conqueror’ in reality he never existed, could mean William the conqueror.

In the poem daddy, there are many historical references to Germany such as when Plath talks about WW2 ‘in the Polish town scraped flat by the roller, wars,wars,wars’
‘An engine, an engine, chuffing me off like a jew, a jew to dachau, auschwitz, Belsen, I began to talk like a jew, I think I may well be a jew.’
Talks about SS, black uniform, SA…
Stereotypes being a gypsy with a taroc pack.