Katherine's Final Speech In The Taming Of The Shrew

Reneea’-Patrine Davidson

Katherine’s Final Speech: A defense of Marriage or A capitulation to Patriarchy?

Shared Power in The Taming of the Shrew

Throughout the play, The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare and Amy Smith’s “Performing Marriage with a difference: Wooing, Wedding, and Bedding in The Taming of the Shrew,” Smith dually notes that marriage is the prime factor of what Shakespeare is portraying. Marriage is a joining of one mind and body that pulls the heart. The Taming of the Shrew addresses the aspect of one mind and body with use of characterization, Petruchio, and Katherine. In Katherine’s final speech she embodies what it means to be one mind and body with your spouse. Smith writes, “Katherine is not determined by her

In this scene Petruchio is telling Katherine there is a moon Katherine then states, “The moon? The sun! It is not moonlight light now” (Shakespeare 185). Petruchio quarrels and states, “it is what I say is it.” Now, Katherine is tired and have no more strength to argue so she agrees and said, “it is whatever you say it is moon or sun.” In the end, even Petruchio tactics were extreme it worked and show that equal power can be established if both parties agree to disagree. Katherine states, “Place your hands below your husband’s foot;/ In token of which duty if he please, / My hand is ready, may it do him ease” (Shakespeare 177-79). Smith states that the performance of Katherine’s submission is somewhat of a romantic gesture, “this scene idealizes and romanticizes that model embracing it with nostalgic value of a vision of social order passing away.” This when Katherine feels that she is no longer on this journey alone, but she has a partner that understands her both strengths and