The taming of the shrew

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW.

(TYPICAL ELEMENTS OF SHAKESPEAREAN COMEDY)

Since early times when Shakespeare started writing his works people loved them and still many of us do. Unfortunately, some of the people who have read or studied Shakespeare’s works at school may find them difficult to understand. This may be due to the lack of background knowledge. I myself had read a few plays before,and they were not very relevant to me since I did not understand them very well. However, now that I have understood more of the Shakespearean period, his life and even his works I find them absolutely interesting and useful in the way that we as foreign learners can learn a lot from his English.
Analyzing the characteristics which may be found on Shakespeare’s comedies it could besaid they are exceptionally distinctive. Some of the most general ones may be: the changing of the roles, slight dangers presented, a troubled beginning with a more relaxed ending, men which fortunes are in middle class, the male and female’s peculiar personalities and roles, weddings, circular order, disharmony and a happy marriage which is normally situated by the end of the play.

All ofthese characteristics make a comedy play unique and it helps to keep audience interested in the play in a humorist manner. In the case of Shakespearean comedies they are not only involved with all these elements but also with the particular style he has got to write his plays and sonnets because he even created new words when he was writing his plays.

In the comedy: The Taming of the Shrew,we can see many of those characteristics mentioned above. What is more, the characterization and the turning of situations upside down are presented to make the plot even more complicated and funny. So, trough the development of the play the characters have to resolve the problems presented and create a better and more ordered life for all of them.

In The Taming of the Shrew the comical aspectsstart with what may be identified as a war between both sexes: male and female. The humor depends on slapstick violence. All of this means that male and female characters are fighting against one another to be the most dominant one, in this case in the marriage of Petruchio and Kate. However, the play begins with an induction which may be even used to suggest that the concerning here is to havethe control of disobedient characters rather than domination from one part of the sexes.
We know from the very beginning that characters in the play are not real because of the induction. In this part of the play is mentioned that a trick is played by a nobleman on the drunkard, Christopher Sly who arranges for an acting troupe to perform a play called The Taming of the Shrew. For this reason wecan laugh at the taming of Petruchio to Kate, we know it is not real. So, this makes the audience not to be worried about certain implications which make things difficult like social deprivation, starvation, and wife-beating. On the contrary this makes the audience to feel relaxed and have an enjoyable time.
Another traditional strategy for softening the violence and converting this play into acomedy is the indication of love at first sight between Kate and Petruchio. In this case, there is also physical comedy which is presented by combining excessive and endearing athletic agility with a strong sense of sexual chemistry between Petruchio and Kate.

It is clear that both, Kate and Petruchio, may themselves be accomplished actors hiding real emotions under absurd behavior. Neither,Kate’s shrewish ness nor Petruchio’s misogyny is real. Kate from the very beginning tries to show her intolerance of fools, especially during the first exchange that occurs with Petruchio.

She is probably found as an aggressive character because of the humiliating nature of the marriage market, not simply from a woman’s will to power. All this makes the play to have a circular sequence and...