How do you think the relationship between husband and wife shall be? Nowadays, most people are convinced that men and women shall be on the equal level in marriage. However, that's not how things work in Shakespearse' age. Thus, he made "The Taming of The Shrew" to describe the discrimination between men and women that time in a ironical way.
Katherina and Bianca are daughters of a rich man. Katherina is tough and aggressive, and nobody likes her. On the other hand, Bianca is such a cute and sweet girl that have plenty of proposers. One day, among the proposers, a man, Petruchio , shows crazy for Katherina instead of the lovely Bianca which rises Katherina's interest. There is someone who aren't afraid of her and like her! At first, she is reluctant to marry him and refuse to act like a " wife " － obey to her husband in every way. However, Petruchio uses all dirty tricks he can to "tame" his wife. Wonder how P plays the tricks and what becomes Katherina at the end? Go and find it yourself!
If the same situation happened in modern age, I guess the husband will definitely be hanged by those women groups. It's no longer the time when men earn money and women do housework. Even a male as I can't agree with what P does in the story. That's not how things work these days. There shall be no more discrimination between both sex. When you girls are reading it, you may be pissed, just don't take it seriously. On the other hand, for boys reading it, never do the same thing on your girlfriend or your wife!
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ReplyDeleteIf one gets married, the relationship between couple is the most challenge one within one’s life. Most often, it’s two people from very different growing background but is destined to hold together for forty, fifty years or even more.
ReplyDeleteThe Taming of the Shrew is an interesting work from Shakespeare. To me, ideal marriage should be based on love and respect and better be run with the attitude of “somewhat sticky but not to sticky”-an act that makes two close people live in an easy way.
I agreed with you. Maybe Shakespeare just wanted to criticize the sick marriage he had seen.
DeleteIn the course , I learned a saying "Love is not Romeo and Juliet, it's your grandpa and grandma." It may be a reference of what is love and marriage.
It looks like the topic which we’ve discussed a lot in the Unit one XD I’ve read Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet when I was in elementary school---of course in children version with phonetic notation. I remember that I didn’t have too much thoughts after reading them. I am not pretty sure it was because of my age then or just because I was not quite interested in Shakespeare. The thing I am sure is that I like the modern novels much more :P and I would like to recommend you two of my favorites, The Girl with Dragon Tattoo and Mistborn.
ReplyDeleteHA you offer two that I'm not dare to try to read. They are big stories and lengthy! I watch The Girl with Dragon Tattoo in film version. I don't know if that's authentic, but the movie is great enough to me. Yet I just don't have the guts to read the original novel. They are so thick!
DeleteAbout Misborn, I only read the first volume then I stop, and I guess it's the small and complicate words that freak me out.