Leiden University Student Repository

Redelijkheid, Elisa (2019)

The Depiction of Gender Ideology through Kate in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew and Two Film Adaptations

Bachelor thesis | Engelse taal en cultuur (BA)

This thesis discusses how issues of gender are addressed in the play as well as provide a comparison between the play itself on the one hand and, the 1929 and the 1967 film adaptations of the play on the other. The Kate character will be analyzed, with a focus on the question of whether Petruchio tames Kate. While one might expect to find an increasingly feminist approach in twentieth-century film adaptations of the play, a detailed comparative analysis yields a surprisingly different approach. The first chapter argues that Shakespeare’s original play confirms dominant early modern gender ideologies, as it celebrates Petruchio’s taming of Kate. The second and third chapters respectively examine the 1929 adaptation directed by Sam Taylor, and the 1967 adaptation directed by Franco Zeffirelli to compare the extent to which the films adhere to the original gender ideology of the play and the directors’ choices in this regard.

gender ideology

The Taming of the Shrew

Film Adaptations

Author

Redelijkheid, Elisa

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

BA English Language and Culture

Supervisors

Dijkhuizen, J.F. van

ECTS Credits

10

Language

en