The Taming Of The Shrew Essay - Can Human Being's Change?

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The Taming of the Shrew Although people can’t change their essential character, they can change their behaviour and attitudes. In Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, Kate’s character doesn’t change but her behaviour does. At the beginning of the play, Kate acts like a shrew, but with Petruchio’s help, she changes her behaviour and uses her strongest traits to her advantage. In the beginning of the play, people hated and didn’t respect Kate, but by the end of the play, those same people came to respect her. In the beginning of The Taming of the Shrew, Kate’s negative behaviour, through her character traits, gains no respect from no one. First, we see Kate’s negative behaviour in using her wit to insult everyone around her. An example of this is when Kate first meets Petruchio and very quickly, the insults are thrown. “Moved! In good time, let him that moved you hither / My remedy is then to pluck it out” (II,I,194-211). Secondly, we see Kate’s negative behaviour when she uses her feistiness and breaks the lute over Hortensio’s head. An example of this is seen when Hortensio was explaining to Baptista why Hortensio looks pale. Hortensio admits that he is fearful of Kate because while trying to teach Kate how to play the lute, Kate took the lute and broke it over his head. “I think she’ll sooner prove a soldier / As had she studied to misuse me so” (II,I,145-155). Lastly, we see Kate’s negative behaviour shown through her loneliness and her desire for a relationship that she torments her sister Bianca and plots revenge against her. This is shown when Kate and Bianca are fighting and Kate says “Her silence flounts me and I’ll be revenged” (II,ii,29), and continues with “What / Til I can find an occasion of revenge” (II,ii,31). Therefore,
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