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The Shrew And 10 Things I Hate About You

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The Taming of the Shrew is a Shakespearean play that is believed to have been written around the 1500’s while 10 Things I Hate about You is a 90’s rom – com written by Gil Junger in 1999. 10 Things I Hate about you is loosely based around The Taming of The Shrew as it shares both the same characters names, same character characteristics and similar plot lines. For example, in Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, "the shrew" refers to Katherine, and, in the film, "the shrew" corresponds to Katarina, or Kat as she is referred to, in the play, the "tamer of the shrew" refers to Petruccio, while the "tamer" in the film corresponds to Patrick. Katherine's and Katarina's sister in both the play and film have the same name, Bianca.
A major theme in …show more content…

The film is set in a 1990's American high school, Padua Stadium High School, the usage of setting are effective in expressing the obsession teenagers have with labelling their relationships. In The Taming of the Shrew, which was written in the 1500’s, marriage was an issue that society obsessed over. In 10 Things I hate about you, this has been appropriated, and dating has become a form of relationship that everyone obsesses over, especially in high school. Dating is shown as a result of peer pressure, Bianca constantly states, “I’m the only girl in school that doesn’t date”. She feels constant pressure from her friends to “fit in” to teenage culture. The theme of dating established the basis of the plot of 10 Things I Hate About You. Michael explains “It is a widely known fact that the Stratford sisters don’t date”. Bianca desperately wants to date, but is only allowed to when Kat does. Kat doesn’t want to date and she states that the boys at her school are ‘unwashed miscreants’ which implies that none of the boys at Padua are up to Kat’s standard. Kat also believes that people do not need a boyfriend to be happy and that having a boyfriend is a waste of time and energy. In terms of the plot of Taming of the Shrew, Baptista (the very wealthy father of Katherine and Bianca) desires to find husbands for both his daughters, offering a fine dowry; Bianca, the younger and fairer, gets more offers for marriage, but Baptista, for some reason, desires his eldest, Katherine, the "shrew," to marry first, restricting Bianca. From there, the character who desires Bianca, Lucentio, finds Petruccio, who only wants to marry, to "tame" Katherine, so Lucentio accordingly can marry Bianca. The theme of dating contributes to the plot of this film and is an ongoing issue in today’s

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