Uncovering hate in The Taming of the Shrew

Many in today’s theater audiences feel uncomfortable with The Taming of the Shrew because of its representation of a cruel man subduing an unruly woman. Although this can be understood as Shakespeare’s phallocentric culture reflected in his writing, I argue that the Bard represents an even more viscous and intractable problem than gender discrimination: humankind’s proclivity for cruelty and violence. In this essay, I show how Shakespeare represents this dangerous tendency evenly on both sides of the gender divide and that whatever amusement we may derive from the farce reflects this same tendency within ourselves.