Taming Of The Shrew Themes

The Taming of the Shrew positions readers to accept the ideologies and beliefs of gender roles in the 17th century. Through literary techniques, contemporary directors modify classic literature’s cultural assumptions, values, and beliefs that underpin texts to suit modern, film based versions. The themes in 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), parallel with Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, while adapting the characterisation and elements of language to suit a modern audience. The Taming of the Shrew is of the Renaissance Period where households are of aristocratic classes; wealth being a measure of class, and education reserved for the wealthy.

10 Things I Hate About You has adapted the setting of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew from the city of Padua, Italy to Padua High School; an American high school, to suit a more modern audience. Although the settings for The Taming of the Shrew and the modern adaptation are different, they still portray and parallel themes of individualism and social class. Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew of the Elizabethan era expressed a division of society at which the social status of women depended almost entirely on marriage. 10 Things I Hate About You’s high school setting

The Taming of the Shrew conveys a specific theme of how economic considerations determine who marries whom which is apparent in the relationship between Katherina and Petruchio as he marries her solely for the dowry. “I come to wive it wealthily in Padua; If wealthily, then happily in Padua.” (1.2.75-77) The plot of The Taming of the Shrew and its film adaptation are very similar at expressing this theme as Petruchio/Patrick is too galvanised by economic considerations when Hortensio/Grumio/Joey bribes Patrick for his own advances in wooing