Editing The Taming of the Shrew (section)

=== Cruelty ===
[[File:Katherine and Petruchio Robert Braithwaite Martineau (1826–1869) The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology.jpg|thumb|''Katherine and Petruchio'', [[Robert Braithwaite Martineau]] (1855)]]
Another theme in the play is cruelty. Alexander Leggatt states:

{{blockquote|the taming of Katherina is not just a lesson, but a game – a test of skill and a source of pleasure. The roughness is, at bottom, part of the fun: such is the peculiar psychology of sport that one is willing to endure aching muscles and risk the occasional broken limb for the sake of the challenge. The sports most often recalled throughout the play are [[blood sport]]s, hunting and [[Falconry|hawking]], thus invoking in the audience the state of mind in which cruelty and violence are acceptable, even exciting, because their scope is limited by tacit agreement and they are made the occasion for a display of skill.{{sfnp|Leggatt|2005|p=56}}}}

Ann Thompson argues that "the fact that in the folktale versions the shrew-taming story always comes to its climax when the husbands wager on their wives' obedience must have been partly responsible for the large number of references to sporting, gaming and gambling throughout the play. These metaphors can help to make Petruchio's cruelty acceptable by making it seem limited and conventionalised."{{sfnp|Thompson|2003|p=36}} Marvin Bennet Krims argues that "the play leans heavily on representations of cruelty for its comedic effect."{{sfnp|Krims|2006|p=39}} He believes cruelty permeates the entire play, including the Induction, arguing the Sly frame, with the Lord's spiteful practical joke, prepares the audience for a play willing to treat cruelty as a comedic matter.{{sfnp|Krims|2006|p=40}} He suggests that cruelty is a more important theme than gender, arguing that "the aggression represented in ''Taming'' can be read as having less to do with gender and more to do with hate, with the text thereby becoming a comic representation of the general problem of human cruelty and victimisation."{{sfnp|Krims|2006|p=48}}

Director [[Michael Bogdanov]], who directed the play in 1978, considers that "Shakespeare was a feminist":

{{blockquote|Shakespeare shows women totally abused – like animals – bartered to the highest bidder. He shows women used as commodities, not allowed to choose for themselves. In ''The Taming of the Shrew'' you get that extraordinary scene between Baptista, Grumio, and Tranio, where they are vying with each other to see who can offer most for Bianca, who is described as 'the prize'. It is a toss of the coin to see which way she will go: to the old man with a certain amount of money, or to the young man, who is boasting that he's got so many ships. She could end up with the old impotent fool, or the young 'eligible' man: what sort of life is that to look forward to? There is no question of it, [Shakespeare's] sympathy is with the women, and his purpose, to expose the cruelty of a society that allows these things to happen.<ref>{{cite book | last=McCullough | first=Christopher J. | chapter=Michael Bogdanov Interviewed by Christopher J. McCullough | editor-last=Holderness | editor-first=Graham | editor-link=Graham Holderness | title=The Shakespeare Myth | location=Manchester | publisher=Manchester University Press | year=1988 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/shakespearemyth0000unse/page/89 89–90] | isbn=978-0-7190-2635-5 | chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/shakespearemyth0000unse/page/89 }}</ref>}}