I love literary detective work and coming up with new theories. My kids and I have lengthy discussions about the books we read and plays we see. The good thing about theorising about long dead authors is that no-one can prove you wrong. My 16 year-old son, Ahren, just came up with a theory that I love so much I begged to be allowed to write an essay about it. He agreed as long as I made it clear it was his idea.
So here is Ahren’s theory on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew: ‘This play only makes sense if Katharina was planning on killing Petruchio.’ Yes! A play that had troubled me, and scholars, for years, suddenly makes perfect sense. Let’s have a look at the plot. Katharina, an intelligent, independent, self-willed young woman is enraged by her status in a society where women are the goods and chattels of men, to be disposed of by those men with no say in their own future. Used to dominating her father, Baptista, she has no wish to be married off to a husband who wants to dominate her. Her subservient sister, Bianca, who has no more ambition in life than to be the chattel of some man, has three suitors. But Baptista has decreed that the younger sister cannot marry before the older. Enter Petruchio, an unlikable adventurer who bargains with Baptista to marry Katharina at a good price. So Katharina is literally sold to a man she loathes. Petruchio decides to ‘tame’ Katharina by ‘killing her with kindness.’ He humiliates her at their wedding and makes her leave before the wedding feast. After making her walk hours to his house she is exhausted and half-starved. Petruchio demands food from his servants then dashes the food from Katrina’s hand, declaring that the meat is burnt and not fit for her to eat. He does the same with her clothes and her bed, declaring that they are not good enough for her, stopping her from eating and sleeping for three days, torturing the poor woman in order to establish mastery over her. Katharina, realising that her husband is a psycho, does the sensible thing and plays along with him until she can figure out an escape. Options were extremely limited for women of her day. She has no money of her own, all her goods belong to her husband. She knows that if she runs away from her abusive husband to her father’s house her father will turn her away. Nor will her sister accept her. She could become a nun but the obedient, cloistered life is not for Katharina. She is a highly intelligent woman so her mind, revolving through all the possibilities, would surely come to the conclusion that the only avenue of escape for her was for her husband to die. She had no money to hire an assassin and anyway, they could be forced to reveal who hired them. No, the only safe way was to kill him herself. But she would have to arrange an iron-clad alibi. Leaving Petruchio’s house to travel to visit Baptista, Petruchio again plays his psychotic games, making Katharina say first that the sun is the moon and then that it is the sun and that an old man is a beautiful young woman. The long suffering Katharina, after going along with his insanity for a while, decides to beat him at his own game and enters into the spirit of the charade so enthusiastically that Petruchio gets miffed and starts to wonder if his Katharina is as tamed as he thinks she is. Katharina, knowing that she won’t have long to wait until she is free, lulls his suspicions again. At the wedding banquet of Hortensio, Petruchio’s friend, Petruchio, convinced he has ‘tamed’ Katharina, boasts to his friends of his meek, mild, obedient wife. His friends, scorning him, vie to see who has the most obedient wife. No doubt Katharina has put this idea into Petruchio’s head somewhere on the journey for she responds as if perfectly prepared and the elaborate charade gives her the opportunity to portray herself to society as an obedient and loving wife. Petruchio and his friends send for their wives, each boasting that their wife will come instantly. His friends’ wives more or less tell their husbands to go boil their heads. Only Katharina, all coy, simpering smiles, comes instantly at her ‘master’s’ behest. When Petruchio tells Katharina to instruct those other wives in their true duty she gives the most sickeningly revolting speech ever, which can only be excused by its intention of painting her as a virtuous, loving, dutiful, doting wife and thereby providing her with a solid alibi. "Fie, fie! Unknit that threatening, unkind brow. And dart not scornful glances from those eyes, To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor: It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads, Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds, And in no sense is meet or amiable….. Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee, And for thy maintenance commits his body To painful labour both by sea and land, To watch the night in storms, the day in cold, Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe; And craves no other tribute at thy hands But love, fair looks and true obedience; Too little payment for so great a debt. Such duty as the subject owes the prince Even such a woman oweth to her husband; And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour, And not obedient to his honest will, What is she but a foul contending rebel And graceless traitor to her loving lord? I am ashamed that women are so simple To offer war where they should kneel for peace; Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway, When they are bound to serve, love and obey. Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth, Unapt to toil and trouble in the world, But that our soft conditions and our hearts Should well agree with our external parts? Come, come, you froward and unable worms! My mind hath been as big as one of yours, My heart as great, my reason haply more, To bandy word for word and frown for frown; But now I see our lances are but straws, Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare, That seeming to be most which we indeed least are. Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot, And place your hands below your husband's foot: In token of which duty, if he please, My hand is ready; may it do him ease." Are we really supposed to believe that this Elizabethan Stepford Wife is the intelligent, proud, independent Katharina who has fallen in love with a boorish oaf whose intellect is less than hers and who tortured her into submission? Or can we just imagine the glint in her eye as she puts her hand under his foot, inwardly laughing at the fate she has planned for him? Now that she has painted herself as the meek, subdued, ‘tamed shrew’, when a sudden accident befalls her ‘beloved’ husband she will prostrate herself with grief and nobody will suspect her, for ‘she was such a loving, devoted wife.’ And was this her plan all along? When she first meets Petruchio they argue fiercely and Petruchio tells Katharina that he will marry her whether she is willing or not. Petruchio then falsely tells Baptista that Katharina has agreed to marry him. Katharina is uncharacteristically silent. Is she already hatching a plan? She knows her father can compel her to marry, it’s just that no-one has ever wanted to marry her before. Has she already worked out that her only chance for autonomy, for a respectable establishment of her own, away from a father who just wants to get rid of her, free from society’s expectation of marrying and bearing heirs to some overbearing, patriarchal man, is to be the wealthy widow of a man that no-one will miss? And all Petruchio’s ‘taming’ of her will have just given her more of a taste for the task.
0 Comments
The ants are my sternest critics. My family are happy with my housekeeping skills – or, if they’re not, they know better than to complain. I’m fairly satisfied with my efforts. But the ants are not.
‘Not good enough,’ is their constant cry, like an exacting great aunt running a white gloved finger over my picture frames. Should I decide to defer the vacuuming, despite the mountain of crumbs under the table – 'Not Good Enough’, they holler, miraculously converging on the feast from nowhere. They think I’m lazy and don’t hesitate to tell me so. If I leave the jam jar on the kitchen bench for 5 minutes before putting it in the fridge – ‘Lazy, lazy, lazy,’ cries the ant circling the jar’s lid. If I let the dishes pile up on the draining board before washing them it’s picnic time for the whole colony. ‘Hey, look what lazy left out for us! Mmm, this one had honey in it. Avocado! I just love avocado. Strawberry yoghurt, my favourite. Ugh, steer clear of this one, there’s a centimetre of oil in the bottom.’ And then, like contrary children deliberately ignoring well-meant ‘don’ts’, a whole mob dives into the oil and commits suicide. If I remonstrate with them their answer is clear, ‘Hey, you gotta wash ‘em as soon as you finish with ‘em otherwise they’re ours. The rules are clear.’ The little slave drivers are tireless, nagging at me ceaselessly. ‘When did you last empty the toaster’s crumb tray?’ they frown. ‘How long since you dusted this windowsill?’ demands the demolition team on its way to dismantle the dead fly that’s been there for half an hour. OK, I didn’t even know the fly was there ‘til I saw the steadily moving ant stream. So, yeah, they keep me on my toes. ‘Oh, come on,’ I say, ‘I’ve given the kitchen bench a thorough wipe down.’ ‘Oh yeah,’ they sneer, ‘well why don’t you just look under that fruit bowl little miss sloppy?’ So I do and sure enough I find fugitive crumbs and a dead bug. So now I have to take everything off the kitchen bench and wipe it down thoroughly, while they watch me with hands on hips, making sure I don’t miss anything. Still, these ants are Tasmanian and pretty easy going as Australian ants go. They’re sociable and like company. Not like the jumping ants where we lived in northern NSW. Go anywhere near them and ‘Clear off!’ they shout as they leap onto you, biting and holding on grimly like microscopic pit bulls. But for sheer attitude the ants in Hughenden, Queensland win hands down. Queenslanders have a reputation for being laid back. Not so the ants. While ramping the temperature up slows us down to a crawl it sends the ants into hyperdrive. These are the bootcamp trainers of the ant world. Jogging, cycling, scooting or skating along the riverside paths is fine, even brisk walking. But slow down or stop and suddenly tiny biting ants swarm all over your feet, forcing you into the ‘get these ants the fuck off me’ dance while larger biting ants launch themselves onto you from the bushes, adding the brushing yourself down move to your dance routine. Rapid movement is the only way to avoid the little blighters, not easy when it’s 42 degrees out. In the house their speed and vigilance is astonishing. One icy pole drip on the kitchen floor and it’s suddenly black with ants. A casual mention of the ant problem to the real estate agent elicited a sassy, ‘Welcome to Hughenden.’ So perhaps I should be more appreciative of our Tasmanian ants. After all, they’re only doing their job and making sure I do mine, darn them. Motherhood changes you alright. That mother tiger stuff is real, only for mother tiger read bad ass bitch. Overnight I transformed from a meek, mild, people pleaser, who smiles politely and says ‘Of course not’ when some foul nicotine addict asks, ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ to a savage, snarling harpy, leaping on unsuspecting strangers with a cry of, ‘How dare you smoke in front of my baby? Are you crazy?’
I had never been jealous and possessive with my boyfriends but I was with my baby. I tensely hovered around as loving relatives and strangers held MY baby, ready to grab her back at any sign of distress. Motherly protectiveness going into overdrive, I rudely informed relatives that their perfume/deodorant fumes were too strong for the baby and requested them to refrain from artificial fragrances around her. On the other hand, my cherished adult autonomy had somehow slipped away. When I grew up and left home I relished being able to do exactly what I wanted with no-one telling me what to do. Now I was being hen-pecked by two tyrants. Not hubby, he’s sweetness itself. No, my new bosses were evolutionary design, aka Mother Nature, and the baby. My long held dreams of hang-gliding and parachuting now seemed like a really bad idea indeed. Ma Nature is this stern nana that says ‘how can you think of throwing yourself out of an aeroplane when you have a baby to care for?’ Anything that might result in my premature death was now well and truly off my bucket list. Pregnancy nausea had made car and bus travel a nightmare. Now it was the baby’s turn. She hated her baby capsule and wailed the whole time we were in the car, reducing car travel to absolute necessity. She loved going for walks in her baby sling, but only in town. Our long forest walks were now off the schedule. The dark trees gave her the heebie jeebies but she loved people and colourful shop fronts. An unusually serious, dour child, her rare smiles beamed out at the handsome young waiters at the ice cream cafes. Still, everything passes and, excitingly, my sense of adventure has now returned. Good old Ma Nature designed us to breast feed for seven years and she doesn’t change her plans, Weetbix or no Weetbix. But my youngest is now 8. Recently, at the top of our local mountain, we watched some hang-gliders and paragliders taking off and there was nothing I wanted to do more than launch myself off the top of a mountain entrusting my life to a flimsy piece of canvas. Ma Nature has obviously decided that, now my child no longer relies on me for bodily sustenance, I am dispensible. Maybe that’s why men in their 50’s buy motorbikes. Nothing to do with mid-life crisis, it’s Nature telling them, “Ok, you’ve raised your family, now you can go smash yourself to bits. Knock yourself out.” |
AuthorFiona Lohrbaecher suffers from the, all too common among writers, IIHTMINTWAI syndrome (If It’s Happened To Me I Need To Write About It) ArchivesCategories
All
|