Taming Or Tamed: An Interpretation Of Female Awareness In The Taming Of The Shrew From The Perspective Of Ethics

As the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history,Renaissance brought great transformation in the literature and society.Shakespeare is one of the leading dramatists in English literature of that age till present time.His plays have been studied by so many scholars for long that almost have covered all respects of literary criticism.The Taming of the Shrew,one of his early plays,was deemed as a relatively immature work,attracting less attention than his other plays.In the main body of the thesis,the first chapter illustrates the ethics of love embodied in different types of young's love in the play,and indicates that durable love should be combined with all kinds of elements.The collisions between sense and sensibility,free love and patriarchal autocracy,as well as egoism and altruism are analyzed in detail in this chapter.The second chapter analyzes the causes of the familial conflicts in the play.Female's struggling for the equality in the division in families,and the affection among the family members is demonstrated in this chapter.The last chapter illustrates the unequal social status between the male and female and female's awareness of struggling against such situation through Shakespeare's depiction of the social communication in the play.Female resistance to the unjust social criteria of male and female conducts,social responsibilities of the male and female sexes and the commercialized interpersonal relations is analyzed in the last chapter.The Thesis depicts the ethical and moral thoughts of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew by exploring the typical ethical phenomena and moral enlightenment on love,family and society from the specific historical circumstances.Analyses indicate that Shakespeare intends to express female's awareness of independence and self-respect through this play,rather than show his misogyny as many scholars argued.