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Taming Of The Shrew Relationships Essay

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Taming Of The Shrew Relationships Essay
Examine the different ways in which Shakespeare presents issues connected with marriage and male and female relationships in the play, The Taming of the Shrew.

Shakespeare has shown issues connected with marriage and male and female relationships by showing how some relationships have love whereas other relationships do not have love and have one partner controlling the other partner. This is much like the main two characters in The Taming of the Shrew who are Katharina and Petruchio. There is not much love between them and Petruchio just tries to “tame” Katharina, hence the name and Katharina being the shrew.
In the induction of the play a character is introduced, who is a man called Christopher Sly, who is in a drunken sleep outside a pub and is discovered by a lord. The lord decides to play a trick on Christopher Sly by convincing
…show more content…
This could be true as he was found drunken sleep outside late at night when he should have been at home. This could mean he has nowhere and no one to go to and probably has never been loved too which shows a softer side to Sly.
This could also be portrayed as Christopher Sly wanting a woman for sex rather than love as he says to his false wife,
“Madam, undress you and come now to bed.”
(Induction, scene 2)
This shows Christopher Sly treating his supposed to be wife more as an animal rather than a human which does happen in relationships, not just men but women too. This is also shown quite a lot in the play. Shakespeare has used this example to show that every marriage, relationship or the partner is not always perfect.
When Petruchio and Katharina first meet their conversation is an extraordinary show of verbal smartness, with Petruchio making use of shocking sexual comments in order to undermine Katherine’s anger.

Petruchio – “A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen”
Katharina – “No cock of min; you crow too like a

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