Outsiders.
Everywhere you go there is always someone who is left out of the group, for various reasons. This has been true for as long as documentation shows. In many of Shakespeare’s plays he portrays “others” yet they are not always who you’d expect from his time. These “others,” are obviously marginalized characters who do not fit in with their society. Shakespeare had a tendency to explore things outside the norm, such as Othello being the lead in his play, regardless of being African American. Shakespeare also did not kill Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, even though he was Jewish. The other characters are based more on personalities than race or religion.
In The Taming of the Shrew the most marginalized character would be Katherine. Most of what we know about Katherine, we hear from other characters in the beginning of the play. She is made out to be a vastly obnoxious girl, who will never be married. She does not fit the standards of a woman in Shakespeare’s time, whereas her sister Bianca does. Katherine is labeled as a shrew from early on, and her father becomes determined to find her a husband. Yet all of the potential suitors run scared upon hearing rumors about her vicious and rude nature.
Many of the characters refer to Katherine as a shrew. A shrew is a small mouse-like creature that has sharp teeth. It was often thought to be violent and bite. In Shakespeare’s time, calling someone a shrew was meant as an insult. Many people thought shrew-like people to be ill-tempered, outspoken women. Headstrong and disobedient are more words to describe the shrews of Shakespeare’s time.
A woman, in Verona, in the time of this play had standards to live up to. She was to be a docile creature, obedient, and introverted. To be lady-like was to agree with your husband, or your parents. Katherine fit none of this until the end of the play. Perhaps had she not followed with the norm of the perfect wife, she would have been killed. She surely would never have found a husband, despite her large dowry. By obeying her husband, she shifts from being the other, to fitting in with the other wives, then becoming even more behaving than them, thus better.
By labeling Katherine as the Shrew Shakespeare’s sets the audience up to accept her as the outside character in this play. I feel as if, despite being the “other,” she is still a likable character. She is feisty and spirited. Whereas in other plays the “other,” is often a disliked character, not only by the other characters, but also by the reader.
