This essay explores the controversial endings of the following plays:
The Taming of the Shrew
A midsummer Night’s Dream
The Merchant of Venice.
Paying particular attention to the language in the last scenes and Shakespeare's enigmatic representation of the female characters with regards to gender roles.
‘It is not obvious from a feminist point of view that ... Shakespeare’s comedies have happy endings’ (Catherine Belsey). Discuss with reference to any two or more plays.
The Nibelungenlied from the 12th to the 20th century(2011/12)
Due Date: 09/01/2012
Our interest in sexual politics and power relationships in the 20th century has rendered Shakespeare’s comedies vulnerable to constant reinterpretation. Feminists have responded heatedly to the misogyny of Kate’s final speech in The Taming of the Shrew, and have demanded that the resolution at the end of A midsummer Night’s Dream does not redeem the suggestions of sexual violence and patriarchy of its beginning. However a feminist reading cannot be mapped onto all the final scenes of the comedies, as Portia’s role in The Merchant of Venice presents a triumphant female victory in a patriarchal world. However, a close analysis of the final scenes in all three plays may provoke a change of thought towards Shakespeare’s true intentions,
From a feminist’s point of view, The Taming of the Shrew is appropriate for starting this discussion for the very reason that the play’s ending is often thought to entirely support her assertion. It is however important to consider the play’s beginning in order to understand why the ending is often regarded as comedic. Kenneth Tynan argues, “We have a sulky, loutish girl who has developed into a school bully and a family scold in order to spite Bianca. Petruchio’s violence, however extreme, is at least attentive...”[1]. Tynan’s statement, however controversial, does hold some element of truth. Kate isn’t just a spirited woman as often described, she is depicted as unscrupulously sadistic when she enters act two with her sister tied up and violently strikes her. Being provoked by jealousy doesn’t seem to warrant this kind of arbitrary behaviour. Kate is further described as a “devil”[2] and “intolerable curst” (I.ii.85) Shakespeare arguably demonises her character to encourage the audience to view Petruchio’s punishment as a redemptive effort, or even a
kind of ‘exorcism’ as Ann Thompson suggests.[3] Petruchio offers Kate a more optimistic trajectory and as Aspinall argues ‘a better life’[4]. Especially in light of Hortensio’s comment which condemns her to a life of spinsterhood for her shrewish behaviour,
No mates for you, unless you
Were of gentler, milder mould. (II.I 60)
Thus, Petruchio rescues her from an undesirable fate of unmarriageability. Petruchio’s unconventional punishment and Kate’s transformation can therefore be seen in an emancipatory light, perhaps providing an Elizabethan audience with a sense of relief and resolution. However, the question arises of just how tenable this speculation is. Dana Aspinall asserts that a contemporary audience would have not been inclined to tolerate the brutal treatment of Katherina as often thought. She explains that arranged marriages began to shift towards more romantic experiments.[5] This is supported by John Fletcher’s contemporary response to the play, The Woman’s Prize, or The Tamer Tamed (c. 1611). It tells the story of Petruchio’s remarriage after Katherina’s death, his new wife attempts (successfully) to tame Petruchio, thus the tamer becomes the tamed. This need to provide place some kind of moral clarity on the play’s ending does suggest a contemporary audience’s awareness of the antifeminism in Shrew.
The Sly material is another indication that Shakespeare himself felt some kind of discomfort towards Kate’s treatment. Essentially, it is often agreed that the frame's purpose was to add an element of fantasy to the play, making the ending's obvious feminist issues palatable, even dismissible. However, in comparison to A Shrew where Sly interjects the play constantly and reappears at the end[6], The Shrew remains unsatisfactory with Sly’s disappearance, preventing the audience from departing from the play’s misogyny. However, the Induction does provide a comforting contradiction to Kate's bizarre final speech. Sly is ejected from a tavern by a spirited hostess, who calls him a "rogue"( Induction.I.2 ) and threatens to have him cautioned. Her physical and verbal display of authority presents an inversion of the gender stereotype, and a huge contrast to Kate’s self-abnegation at the end. Perhaps the audience are to regard this as the real world. The notion that the play has been made safe can be supported by Sly's invitation to "let the world slip" (Induction 2.139) before the play commences. By suggesting a departure from reality, Shakespeare asserts that what Sly and the audience experience is a fantasy. Thus, if the characters are not fully human, then Petruchio's treatment of Kate could be excused at the end, rendering a feminist reading unnecessary. Shakespeare was clearly grappling with ways which would allow him to experiment with farcical gender trajectories in his plays. Comparing Portia’s dominating figure in The Merchant of Venice (later explored in detail) with Kate’s bizarre female submission does suggest Shakespeare’s experimental gaze. A subtler reading of Kate’s final speech points towards its farcical nature. Paradoxically there is a contradiction between what Kate is saying and how she is saying it, as her lengthy and energized rhetoric allows her to dominate the stage and have the last word. Franco Zeffirelli exploits this in his 1967 adaptation of The Taming of The Shrew where Elizabeth Taylor dictates to a crowd of helpless on-lookers with charismatic body language. In both play and film, her dominance remains hard to align with female submission. The farcical elements of Kate’s speech are further revealed through her assertions, which provide a grand irony to her past treatment, she stresses that a husband,
“commits his body to painful labour, both by sea and land...
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe
He craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obidience;”. (V.ii.151)
Kate’s idealistic depiction of the husband as the diligent provider and toiler is everything Petruchio is not. Her assertion of a wife’s domestic bliss provides a humorous irony to the arbitrary mistreatment she suffered at the hands of Petruchio. She further simplifies and romanticises a man’s needs, the audience are aware that Petruchio’s needs are ironically Kate’s wealth. Like an actress reciting her lines Kate is essentially preaching something she has never experienced nor believes in, and it is far too bizarre to be taken seriously. It is also plausible to interpret the entire scene as a kind of double act, as Ruth Ellis argues, “She is not conquered. She joins forces enthusiastically”[7] Kate and Petruchio essentially unite to ridicule the others, as demonstrated by the wager. Although many critics insist that it is a patriarchal ritual game[8] Petruchio is arguably dependent on his partner to play along with this theatrical display of obedience, for the sake of his own reputation. Petruchio is inviting Kate to mimic public roles in order to transcend above the other characters,
“Katherine, I charge thee, tell these headstrong women
what duty they do owe their lords and husbands” (V.ii.130)
After being labelled a shrew by the widow, Kate revels in the chance to attack back. She directs her derogatory comments about women “bereft of beauty” (V.ii.143) directly at the widow and Bianca. Petruchio’s reaction, “why, there’s a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate” (V.ii.180) is similar to an exclamation after a great performance and closes the speech as theatrically as it begun, thus completing the double act. Kate gives Petruchio the display of obedience that he needs, and Kate gets to mock her female counterparts in the process. To interpret Kate’s speech as a farce does reject Belsey’s assertion that the play’s ending is completely misogynistic. However, it also largely depend on how the play is performed, in the 1929 version by Samuel Taylor, Kate (Mary Pickford) finishes her speech with a “broad wink”, to the audience[9]. This completely renounces the sincerity of the speech, and suggests that Pickford is simply playing along with male fantasy.
Yet modern solutions cannot completely revoke Belsey’s argument. Kate’s speech demonstrates that her language is no longer her own, but an echo of Petruchio’s. As Boose suggests, in “Petruchio’s taming school”, to tame a shrew you first have to control her tongue[10]. Kate’s surrender of her own voice can be mapped out in linear terms. There is a tragic difference between Kate’s nature at the beginning of the play and at the end,
“If I be waspish, best beware my sting” (II.i.210)
“Sun it is not, when you say it is not,
And the moon changes even as your mind,
What you will have it named, even that it is” (II.29-22).
At the beginning, Kate dominates Petruchio through quick witted and loquacious rhetoric, towards the end however, she is compelled to switch the words moon and sun to satisfy Petruchio’s will. The play transgresses then to Kate’s last speech, where her language shows complete surrender to the patriarchal world. Here we see transcendence in her rhetoric from a tool of defence and defiance, to an urge for female submission. If there was any doubt left of the misogyny of Kate’s speech, her final proclamations reassure it’s troubling sincerity,
“my mind hath been as big as one of yours,...
to bandy word for word and frown for frown,
but now I see our lances are but straws,
our strength as weak, our weakness past compare:
That seeming to be most, which we indeed least are”
Kate renders women intellectually and physically inferior to men, thus giving up the battle, and accepting her destiny. Although the play does end in a married couple leaving the stage together, the chances of a happy ever after will constantly be challenged by feminists.
In contrast to The Taming of the Shrew and also somewhat contradictory to Belsey’s assertion, it is the beginning of A Midsummer Night’s Dream which is saturated in antifeminism not the end. The scene opens with a direct allusion to female punishment and violence when Theseus describes his conquest over Hippolyta,
“Hippolyta, I woo’d thee with my sword,
And won thy love, doing thee injuries”[11]
In contrast to the gradual taming of Kate, the scene opens with a woman who has already been forced into submission. Laura Levine has commented on this introduction as an allusion to ‘rape’[12], thus Shakespeare may be voicing the misogynistic assumptions of his time, although it is equally plausible that he is referring factually to the Greek mythological battle between Theseus and Hippolyta. Yet there is a clear attempt to dismiss this violence with festive celebrations, Theseus insists he will marry Hippolyta “with pomp, with triumph, and with reveling” (1.1, 24). This is a dubious attempt to legitimise the marriage. Hippolyta remains permanently subdued by Theseus and spends the first act in silence. He doesn’t consult her about the lovers’ dilemma and takes no further notice of her until he is ready to leave, “Come, my Hippolyta, what cheer my love?” (I.i.2). Alan Sinfield suggests that her silence is a sign of dismay as she must look on at Theseus’ bullying of Hermia but is powerless to intervene[13], thus Theseus’ overbearing figure and Hippolyta’s supressed presence on stage is troubling for a modern audience and permits a feminist reading. Shakespeare’s portrayal of the traditionally powerful and autonomous queen of the Amazons in such a way is peculiar, perhaps, like Portia’s character, Shakespeare is exploring a social anxiety and simultaneous fantasy about powerful women. However, the underlining patriarchy of this scene transcends further when Egeus enters and demands the right to control and direct Hermia’s sexuality. Rather than redeeming his figure, Shakespeare continues to portray Theseus as a diligent advocate of male supremacy,
[...]
[1] Kenneth Tynan, Observer June 1960, in As She Likes it: Shakespeare’s Unruly Women, Penny Gay, (Newyork: Routledge, 1994). P.97.
[2] William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, ed. Ann Thompson, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). I.I.66. All further references incorporated in text.
[3] Thompson, The Taming of the Shrew, Introduction, p. 27.
[4] Aspinall, Critical Essays, p. 14.
[5] Aspinall, Critical Essays, p. 6.
[6] Aspinall, Critical Essays, p. 6.
[7] Ellis, Ruth, Stratford Herald, 14th May 1948, in As She Likes it: Shakespeare’s Unruly Women, Penny Gay. P.89.
[8] Collins, Sweet Thunder, p.188
[9]
[10] Boose, Scolding Brides, p. 169.
[11] William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, ed. Peter Holand, (Oxford, 1994) I.i.21-2. All further references incorporated in text.
[12] Levine, Repetition and the politics of closure, p. 210.
[13] Sinfield, Shakespeare, Authority, Sexuality, p. 37.
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