The Taming of the Shrew

She Will Be Tamèd So College

In the comedy The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare deconstructs common adages regarding the essentials of building a healthy relationship. He does so through the unconventional pairing of Katharina, an “ill-seeming” shrew whose disobedience and argumentative nature act as defense mechanisms in building relationships with others, and Petruchio, a sarcastic bachelor who seeks a worthy, equally witty wife and companion. Through their courtship and early married life, readers understand that “[m]otive and action are connected in an oblique, sometimes puzzling way” (Leggatt 149). Petruchio, upon hearing throughout all of Padua about Katharina’s infamous reputation as a shrew, aims to “tame” her through arguably extreme methods. However, “[w]henever Shakespeare’s comedies challenge the limits to sexual equality, they end by strenuously reaffirming those limits…” (Bamber 163), thus deviating from the socially acceptable and politically correct to urge readers to dig deeper into such portrayed social extremes and uncover the underlying messages buried beneath.

In the article "51 Signs of an Unhealthy Relationship," Alice Boyes states that a warning sign of an unhealthy relationship is if your partner “does not respect when you say ‘no’...

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