3. The Taming of the Shrew is one of
Shakespeare's most famous comedies. This
play demonstrates how money controls
marriage and shows a much different role of
love in a relationship.
4. The two couples do fall in love but the ways
in which their eventual love relationships
come about are very different however.
Petruchio and Katherine Lucentio and Bianca
represent much of the society in are the opposite of that in they
which Shakespeare lived where married each other for love that
people did not marry for love, they initially felt, though it was
but learned to love each other love at first sight for only
over time. Lucentio.
5. The life in time of Shakespeare's play illustrates the
importance of money to the upper class families.
Money is the reason Petruchio married Katherine
though their undesirable personalities made them
perfect for each other, and the reason Lucentio won
Bianca's hand from Sir Gremio. Though
Gremio loved the girl, and had known her
longer, it was in the end his inability
to compete with the rich Lucentio
which lost him Bianca's hand.
6. he attaches great importance to money
and love seems less important than it in his
view.
7. Money is the reason why Baptista offers a
generous dowry to the man who marries his
daughter Kate in order to get a husband for his
undesirable daughter.
8.
9. Baptista tells Tranio (as Lucentio) and Gremio that the one
who can offer Bianca the most for a dowery, will be the one
who marries her.
He said:
"Content you, gentlemen. I will compound this strife.
'Tis deeds must win the prize, and he of both
That can assure my daughter greatest dower
Shall have my Bianca's love.“ (2.1: 341- 346)
Baptista treats marriage like a business, his girls
Go to the highest bidders and he's not above
taking a bribe from any suitor looking to
get on his good side.
10. Shakespeare intertwines love and money throughout this
play Consider that the pitting of Tranio against Gremio for
Bianca's hand before Baptista involves a comparison of
riches.
"First, as you know, my house within the city/Is richly
furnished with plate and gold,/Basins and ewers to
lave her dainty hands,“
says Gremio.(2.1: 344-346)
"Two thousand ducats by the year, three great
argosies, besides two galliases/And twelve
tight galleys," responds Tranio. (2.1: 367-377)
11. And just as Baptista wants to ensure that Bianca receives a
sufficient dowry, so too Petruchio demands that Katharina
come with sufficient wealth:
"Then tell me, if I get your daughter's love,/What dowry
shall I have with her to wife?" (2.1: 119-120)
The two narratives thus share evident symmetry in their
concern with wealth: the quest for love is never
disconnected from the quest for money.
Indeed, money is so important in securing marriage
that the characters in the play are driven to
desperate, even ludicrous measures in order to
prove their wealth; Tranio even grabs a man off
the street to assume the role of the wealthy
Vincentio. The uneasy role of money in The
Taming of the Shrew is never fully resolved.
