A Reading of The Taming of the Shrew: Considering the Specialties of The Taming of the Shrew within the Fairy Tale Frame of “King Thrushbeard”

Abstract

This essay examines The Taming of the Shrew from the fairy tale frame of Thrushbeard. It is well known that Shakespeare often used frame stories for writing his daramas. Before Shakespeare wrote The Taming of the Shrew quite a few shrew-taming stories existed and it is suggested that Shakespeare read some of them. Just as Tillyard finds similarities between and The Taming of the Shrew, I intend to read The Taming of the Shrew within a shrew-taming frame. However, keeping an eye on the similarities between the two stories, I focus on the differences between them, which were mainly caused by the shift from the medieval historical and economical system to the early modern one. As for the causes of the differences, firstly, the social, political, and religious circumstances are considered. The demand for the establishment of a powerful modern nation and the Reformation required a powerful patriarchal society and a solemn regious household, which led to justification for suppressing womens will and speech. Therefore, the focus of the two stories shifts from the suppression of womens pride as the cause of the original sin to the control of womans tongue and shrewishness as the necessity for the subjugation of women. Secondly, the transition from the medieval economic system to early capitalism changed the economics role of women. With the rise of capitalism, the economic value of women lay not in domestic production but in the consumption of market goods. Therefore the focus of the taming of women shifts from making women as good domestic producers to proper consumers of market goods. Whereas King Thrushbeard imposes the duty of production on the princess, Petruchio controls Kates consumption. Consideration of the specialties of The Taming of the Shrew within the frame of shrew-taming stories offers an effective way of understanding the play.