Many of the exchanges between Petruchio and Katherina are rapid and vicious. Using Act 2 Scene 1 as a starting point, explore how far the structure and the delivery of comic languages can mask darker social concerns? The relationship between Petruchio and Katherina is extremely dysfunctional in Taming of the Shrew. Shakespeare creates their dynamic as based around the issues of domestic and psychological abuse. Act 2 Scene 1 is used to be the point of which the issues start to become apparent, with the ensuing psychological and emotional effects on Katherina now she is being subjected to Petruchio entering her life.
At the beginning of Act 1 we are confronted with the physical conflict in the play when Abigail threatens her friends when they are crumbling and on the verge of spilling Abigail’s secret: “Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you.” Power through violence is a main theme in this play. Whoever has power will enforce it viciously to ensure their needs are secured. For example, Tituba, Reverend Paris’ slave faces certain death by beating or confess to witchcraft. This outcome suits Paris’s needs, in order to hold responsible someone outside of his immediate family for witchcraft. Physical conflict is at the heart of the play through the witch hunt; a constant threat to all of the main characters integrity, constantly being scrutinised by a suspicious community on the road to utter destruction.
However this could have quite a sad undertone and that Kate is putting on this harsh front to prevent her from marrying into an even more dominant male world. In the Elizabethan times, women were expected to marry and were always ‘looked after’ by men, but once married the woman’s husband was allowed to chastise their wife. There were also very few divorces, meaning once married women were trapped. So Shakespeare could possibly showing that all her inner sadness due to her more loved sister, her lack of beauty and the male dominance that she is being made to marry, could be forcing her to act angrily as she thinks it’s the only way to prevent herself from being unwillingly condemned to marrying the men her father wants her to. Shakespeare also uses Petruchio to emphasise his misogynistic view, as he is able to act very aggressively towards her, and says ‘I’ll cuff you if you strike again’.
Ruthlessly accusing others of witchcraft she changes her story as a desperate act of self-preservation, “I danced with the devil; I saw him; I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss his hand. I saw Sarah Good with the devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the devil!” Abigail develops a chant of names, becoming ‘enraptured, as though in a pearly light’ demonstrating her lust for power and attention. As early as Scene one, we learn of the motives behind Abigail’s actions as she tries to get the girls to agree on a story to protect herself.
Lady Macbeth’s disposition brings to the fore many themes concerning gender, including; the definition of manhood and alternatively femininity, the role of women in the play highlighted through the characters of Lady Macbeth and the Witches, and the synonymy between masculinity and cruelty. Through key scenes in Macbeth, particularly Act 1, Scene 5 (Norton), Lady Macbeth’s gender is explored as she indicates that she must compensate for her husbands lack of masculine characteristics and thus propel him to commit Duncan’s murder. Similarly, the ambiguity of the Witches gender is reiterated through their very own being- a violation of how women were expected to behave. Act 1, Scene 5 introduces the audience to Lady Macbeth’s indifference to the feminine qualities not only of herself, but also those of which her husband possesses. Lady Macbeth decidedly usurps the dominant role because she feels her husband “is too full o’ the milk of human kindness” (i.v.16).
Steinbeck presents Curley’s Wife in different perspectives. The sympathy which she attracts is immense. She explains that she ‘gets lonely’ and ‘I get awful lonely’. The use of repetition emphasises her isolation and frustration at her not being able to talk to ‘nobody but Curley’ and this frustration continually surfaces as she speaks to Lennie. “And her words tumbled out in a passion of communication as though she hurried before the listener could be taken away”.
Antigone and her sister, Ismene are together in two scenes, the prologue and the second scene. They always argue because of their different opinions. Ismene feels that although she loved her brother, he is dead, and they should respect the law and not bury him with honor. The other contrasts come between Creon and the guard and Haimon, who is Creon’s son, in the third scene. Creon and Antigone also contrast in the way they live.
When Macbeth returns later in the scene, she immediately pounces onto him and tries to persuade him to murder the King and she says it in a very manipulative way. When Lady Macbeth says: ‘Look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under it’ She uses a recurring theme of appearance versus reality. This shows that she is a two-faced character and tries to persuade Macbeth to be the same. The use of language suggests that she is very demanding and will not stop at anything to get what she wants. In this scene we’ve found that she is a domineering and two-faced character through the phrase: ‘Look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under it’.
Despite her disagreeable nature witnessed in the beginning of the play, Kate’s true desire is to love and be loved. A suitable example for this could be in Act Two, Scene One, when Kate binds her sister Bianca’s hands and begins to question her about the many suitors the girl has: KATHERINE. Of all thy suitors here I charge thee tell Whom thou lov’st best. See thou dissemble not. BIANCA.
In their attack ofthe women’s shelter, Ruby’s men have called and labelled the women with multiple names associating them with the devil’s deeds. According to them, those females arewitches. When entering the Convent rooms, “What they see is the devil’s bedroom, bathroom, and his nasty playpen” (Morrison 17). The women are considered to be disobedientdue to their revolutionary nature that brings about Ruby’s men hatred towards them. Consequently, the men’s ultimate goal is to finish and to “Beat out the snakes” (18).