The Taming Of The Shrew Analysis

William Shakespeare: An Analysis of his Progressive Messages
It was not until the 20th century that the topic of poor treatment towards minorities and women began to make recurring appearances in legislation and US Supreme Court decisions. Minority ethnicities and religions, as well as races, began to obtain more rights and experience less discrimination due to progress in legislation. Before the 20th century, most ethnicities, races, and women were viewed as subordinates and accepted that position because they had no opportunity to move up the socioeconomic ladder and lacked the means to fight against the system that disenfranchised them. Unbeknownst to most, several of these explosive topics were addressed in literature over 300 years prior
Feminism did not begin in any organized form until 1848 with the Seneca Falls convention, and “women began to realise that in order to transform society they would need their own organisations to do so”(Greenberg). Knowing this, it is obvious that feminism did not exist during Shakespeare’s era, and he was essentially doing something no one had ever had the gall to attempt before. In The Taming of the Shrew, he created a strong willed woman who voiced her opinions and refused to be married off like a object. Most notable in this play is how Shakespeare presents the men; each one in the play is powerful, wealthy, handsome, or a combination of the three, as there is no man that does not have some ability to get what he wants. Yet Shakespeare uses extreme amount of humor, much of it crude due to his being influenced by Marlowe, and intelligent female characters to make the men seem like egotistical idiots. It may have been a social norm to act like an arrogant fool in the Renaissance, but as time goes on and Shakespeare’s plays only become more popular, it becomes more and more obvious that the men and women in the novel are on completely different intelligence levels. Although having only two female characters, The Taming of the Shrew passes the Bechdel Test, which is a social
In Othello, the two main women, Desdemona and her friend Emilia, are foils of one another. Desdemona is Othello’s wife and acts exactly as a woman was believed to in their era, a devoted and subservient wife who would die if that is what her husband requested, whereas Emilia was loyal to her husband only until it contradicted her moral code. Emilia stood up for her friend when she was threatened, “Good gentlemen, let me have leave to speak: / Tis proper I obey him, but not now. / -Perchance, Iago, I will ne’er go home”(Othello V.ii.195-197). Throughout the play, Emilia makes references to her independent nature, but it is not until this scene at the end of the play that she openly defies her husband in order to protect her closest friend. It is a total girl power moment for her and led to many discussions about her as a character, “[she] achieved psychological freedom and freed herself from societal domination and self-imposed restraints by speaking and acting as she thinks and feels”(Iyasere). Emilia also has a powerful monologue comparing women to men in this play. Her outcry to the men is a strikingly radical speech in a play that had repeatedly displayed patriarchal dominance. Her tone is powerful and progressive throughout the final scene, contributing to the impact the