Winner, Outstanding Essay, Honors Writing Category, 2005

Jamie L. Barker
ENG 151
Dr. Emily Detmer-Goebel

Entertainment or Lesson of the Times?

In his essay “Laughing Matters,” Scott Shershow quotes Sigmund Freud, describing a joke as “a double-dealing rascal who serves two masters at once” (qtd. In Shershow 3). Many times jokes or comedies serve two purposes. The first purpose that comes to mind is that of entertainment. Often though, a moral or social plot is disguised behind the mere jokes and laughter that a comedy provokes. These moral or social ideas may be difficult to accept and come to terms with directly, so the comedy of the plot disguises the real message of the play, making it easier to digest (Shershow 4).

Shershow’s and Freud’s theories can very easily be applied to Shakespeare’s comedy The Taming of the Shrew. When reading the play in the mindset that it is only supposed to be entertaining, the only thing you truly get out of it is a comical story line. In the story, Katherina, a headstrong woman, does not want to be controlled by a man such as Petruchio. You find comedy in Petruchio’s many attempts to “tame” her, his showing up in old clothes at the wedding (3.2), his “killing her with kindness” strategies (4.1), and arguments such as whether the sky is alight by the moon or the sun (4.5). We simply see these as goofy notions Petruchio has. At the end when Kate makes her speech telling women they should obey and bow to their husbands (5.2), we don’t take it seriously and believe her to be only jesting and trying to please Petruchio. When reading it in the mindset of a comedy, we do not really accept it as true that she has been tamed.

If you separate the text, though, from the idea that the play is supposed to be a comedy, you reach a very different viewpoint. When you read Kate’s closing speech (5.2) with the notion that she has been tamed, and is now completely subservient to Petruchio, you can begin to realize a social or moral function to the play. Perhaps hidden beneath the comedy and entertainment issues Shakespeare installed in The Taming of the Shrew, there was also a strong social and moral lesson. It is very possible that this play was meant to be serious, and meant to advise men that they should keep their wives under foot. Kate’s last speech (5.2) could have seriously been implying that women should obey their husbands and be dutiful to them. The comedy of the play makes these ideas easier for the audience to digest, but the story line can still have a great impact on them and make them think about these social issues. The entertainment value was used to draw an audience to the play, which would come away from it perhaps with a new outlook on the ideas in their society.

During this time period of the late 16th to mid-17th century, women were expected to be subservient to their husbands. From the years of 1547 to the middle 1600’s, it was custom at each wedding in the Anglican Church for a sermon to be read, known as A Homily of the State of Matrimony, which presented the ideas that women should be subservient and obey their husbands (Dolan 169). Within this sermon, St. Peter is quoted saying, “You wives, be in subjection to obey your own husbands” (Homily 176). It goes on to preach that wives are to “obey, and cease from commanding, and perform subjection” to their husbands (Homily 176).

A wife was to “apply herself to his will,” “to do him pleasure,” and to “eschew all things that may offend him” (Homily 176). Perhaps, then, Kate’s closing speech was meant to be taken as sincere (5.2). It is quite possible there was a true moral behind this to teach women that to succumb and obey their husbands is best, that as a subject owes a prince, a woman owes duty to her husband (5.2.158-159). Since this idea of a wife being completely devoted to serving her husband was so popular during this time, Kate’s speech could have been meant to persuade shrewish women of the audience to come into compliance.

There could also be a possible moral to Petruchio’s part in the case of taming a shrewish wife. At this time, wives were to be under the strict control of their husbands. Wives who were loud and unruly, spoke out of tongue, or bossed their husbands around were known as “shrews” or “scolds” (Dolan 10). Many times husbands of these women would use violence in order to keep them under control and to tame them. Husbands automatically assumed that they had the right to use force to bring about obedience and keep order (Dolan 218). Margaret Hunt states that “relatively few men or women in early modern England thought wives had an absolute right not to be beaten” (qtd. In Dolan 218). In William Whately’s A Bride-Bush, a conduct book of the 17th century, he argues that the use of domestic violence is a debatable issue, but if a wife is to “abase herself to foolish, childish, slavish behavior, I see not why the rod or staff or wand should not be used for the fool’s back in this case also” (Whately 224). In further proof of this idea, the ballad “A Merry Jest of a Shrewd and Curst Wife” presents the image of a husband beating his wife with a rod until she bleeds and then wrapping her in salted horse hide to “calm” her tongue (“A Merry Jest” 281).

However, in “The Taming of the Shrew,” Petruchio never uses these types of violence. His methods do not use beating or physical violence. In fact, during the entire play, he never once strikes Kate. Instead, he uses other methods, methods that still do not seem morally right, but are much more acceptable alternatives to beating a wife. Perhaps this play was used to suggest to men that violence was not the best way to tame a wife, that there were other alternatives that were just as successful. Many of Petruchio’s methods of taming were based on those of falconry, or how to train a falcon. The way to train a falcon was often to remove its wants or needs, such as food, and allow them to come to rely only on you, the trainer, for these basic needs (see George Turberville, The Book of Falconry or Hawking). Petruchio practices this method by depriving food and sleep from Katherina (4.2). In his speech he even compares what he is doing to falconry, saying “My falcon now is sharp and passing empty / And till she stoop she must not be full gorged” (4.2.158-159). He continues to say in the same speech that he will make her “come and know her keeper’s call” (4.2.162). Petruchio also denies Kate objects she desires, as when the hat and dress he had made are brought in. Katherina loves the new clothing, but Petruchio says it is not suiting to her and that she must not have it (4.3).

William Gouge, author of the pamphlet “Of Domestical Duties: Eight Treatises,” also suggests these methods of deprivation that Petruchio uses as suitable means to tame a shrewish wife. He states that “other forcible means” besides beating can be used to tame a wife. One he suggests is that she be “denied such things as she most affecteth” (Gouge 228). A Homily of the State of Matrimony also suggests using milder options to bring a wife under control, saying that physical violence and stripes are compassed by the devil and that reasoning should be used and not fighting (Homily 175). It seems possible to me that Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew could have had an underlying message to men in the audience. It is a message that reinforces the ideas of “The Homily of the State of Matrimony” and the ideas of William Gouge, that perhaps physical violence is not the best way to control a wife. The play serves to show men that there are other options to keep a wife under control besides sheer physical violence. Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew served both an entertainment function as well as a social or moral lesson. The first lesson is that it is best for a woman to be obedient to her husband, and the second is that milder ways exist of taming shrewish wives other than physical beating.


Works Cited

Dolan, Frances E., ed. The Taming of the Shrew: Texts and Contexts. New York: Bedford, 1996.

Gouge, William. “Of Domestical Duties: Eight Treatises.” Dolan 225-228.

"A Homily of the State of Matrimony.” Dolan 172-184.

"A Merry Jest of a Shrewd and Curst Wife.” Dolan 257-288.

Shakespeare, William. The Taming of the Shrew. Dolan 39-139.

Shershow, Scott Cutler. Laughing Matters. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996.

Turberville, George. The Book of Falconry or Hawking. Dolan 309-310.

Whately, William. A Bride-Bush. Dolan 222-225.