Monstrous women: The Taming of the Shrew (1590-1594) and Top Girls (1982)

1. Monstrous women: The Taming of the Shrew (1590-1594) and Top Girls (1982) A Comparative Reading

2. outline • Historical Context • Situating The Taming of the Shrew • Major plot points • Structure and repetition • Some Feminist Terms • Gender vs. Class • Redeeming the Shrew • Review

3. Historical Context • Why does the “shrew” need to be tamed? • Shrew: “a woman given to railing or scolding or other perverse or malignant behavior; frequently a scolding or turbulent wife” (Oxford English Dictionary Online) • Elizabeth I, English politics, and the “monstrous regimen of women” (1558) • Women’s rule is considered “unnatural”: Elizabeth I considers herself a “prince” even though she has a woman’s body (this implies a division between her public role as monarch and her private role as woman); is Elizabeth’s belief similar to Marlene’s attitude to motherhood? • No women appeared on stage in Shakespeare’s time • No women attended parliament or university (no representation of the interests of women) • How is Angie’s situation different? • Coverture (Petruchio calls Kate his “chattel”): wives have no legal status

4. Historical context: top girls • England in the 1980s: another “monstrous regimen”?Margaret Thatcher (the first female Prime Minister) • What is the foundation of the political disagreement between Joyce and Marlene? Why is this disagreement significant? • Who are the “top girls”? Who isn’t included in this category? • Is Joyce a shrew? Is she tamed?

5. Situating The Taming of the Shrew • Location: Warwickshire (Sly); Padua (Petruchio and Kate) • Induction “dream” frame and the parody of hierarchy • Sly glorifies himself on his noble descent but he is either lying or doesn’t understand his own family history (“Richard” the Conqueror); the Lord intends to laugh at his ridiculous pride by displacing him from his squalid environment to one of luxury • The Lord deludes Sly and lies to the performers: he is a master of disguise, just as Petruchio is in the inset narrative • Gender Politics • Sly is less interested in the refined entertainment of the performance than in having sex with his wife (a boy in disguise) • Petruchiomisrepresents Kate—but does this imposture have the same meaning or a different one? • If boys can act like women, is women’s behavior “natural” or a performance? Consider Kate and Bianca; also consider Pope Joan, Dull Gret, and Marlene—all three displace men in some way

6. Major Plot Points: Shrew • Induction: Christopher Sly, the Lord, and the parody of hierarchy • Kate vs. the men of Padua (I.i.48-66) • Petruchio (from Verona) vs. the men of Padua (I.ii.176-208 and II.i.74; Petruchio is an outsider, a man of action and courage, but he is also avaricious—he wants Kate primarily for her dowry) • Kate vs. Petruchio (II.i.131-300) • Kate’s final monologue (V.ii.142-185)

7. STructure and repetition: Shrew • Frame narrative/Shakespeare’s play-within-a-play • Frame narratives suggest that we should view one narrative (Kate and Petruchio’s courtship) in terms of another (the trick pulled on Christopher Sly) • Identifying words, terms, or concepts that are repeated is an efficient way of locating the structuring principles of a text (the patterns that give a work of art its organic unity, its sense of wholeness) • What terms are repeated in both narratives? “Lunacy,” the confusion of reality and fiction, is one. What are others? (Women’s hypocrisy; the gap between words and actions; the use of disguise to achieve specific ends; the collapsing of animal/human identities) • Because the frame narrative is never closed (we don’t know what happens to Sly), we, the audience, are possibly implicated in his delusion (we are watching a play just as Sly is—can we be so sure of our “reality”?)

8. Structure and repetition: top girls • Depending on the production the play has three acts: the dinner party; the backyard/ the employment agency office; and Joyce’s kitchen. What characterizes each scene? • Why is there so much overlapping dialogue—what could be the significance of this choice? • What are some of the recurring themes in the conversations between characters in each of the three acts? How might they comment on each other? • What kinds of images recur throughout Top Girls? What might they suggest? For instance, consider the ill-fitting dress that Marlene buys for Angie—what is its significance? What do dresses mean for other characters?

9. Feminist Terms • Patriarchy: “Patriarchy is not simply another way of saying ‘men.’ Patriarchy is a kind of society, and a society is more than a collection of people. … A society is patriarchal to the degree that it promotes male privilege by being male dominated, male identified, and male centered. It is also organized around an obsession with control and involves as one of its key aspects the oppression of women.” (Allan G. Johnson, The Gender Knot 5) • Subject: “the thinking or cognizing agent; the self or ego” (Oxford English Dictionary Online) • Within patriarchy women are treated like objects (they are meant to be acted upon) rather than subjects (they have independent thoughts, feelings, reactions); in a patriarchal system women are expected to be obedient rather than assertive. Ultimately, who better conforms to patriarchal expectations in TheTaming of the Shrew—Kate or Bianca?

10. Gender vs. class • “Proper” feminine behavior: silent, obedient, submissive • How much choice does Katherine have? • Marriage market • Coverture and the “rule of thumb” • How much choice do the women from different time periods, cultures, and classes have in Top Girls? (Compare Nijo, Griselda, and Angie) • Do “top girls” like Elizabeth I or Margaret Thatcher represent all women? Would Marlene invite Angie to her party in Act I? What does it take to be a “top girl”?

11. Redeeming the Shrew: Anger, silence, and social justice • Is Kate’s “shrewishness” (that is, her lack of the proper feminine qualities of silence, obedience, submissiveness) ultimately redeemed? If so, in what way? • Does Shakespeare portray shrewishness as praiseworthy as long as it is properly directed (by a worthwhile man)? • Kate’s “taming” • Psychological, emotional, and physical abuse • Is her final speech sincere or does she simply learn how to perform her femininity? Is it possible to tell? • Is identity clearly a performance for any characters in Top Girls? Consider Shona and Pope Joan. • Why does Mrs. Kidd confront Marlene? Why is Joyce angry? Why is Angie frightened? Are any of these women shrews? Why or why not?

12. Review • Historical context • Structure and repetition • Patriarchy and the subject • Gender vs. class • Voice and social justice • Any questions?