Struggle of Identity

The movie, “10 Things I hate about you” stands on its own ground when compared with the Shakespeare’s masterpiece, “Taming of the shrew”. The movie is adapted but modern version of the renowned play. Both the works revolves around the main character’s life, Katherine the Shrew.One of the common difference in both the masterpiece is that the Shakespeare’s play’s main theme encircle around the marriage of two sisters:Katherine, an outspoken, rude, cruel and mismanaged girl, while, Bianca a soft spoken , innocent, charming girl, a desire of every eligible bachelor of the town.“Taming the Shrew” has a setting of London’s wealthy family, while the movie is based on the family living in California, whose daughters are studying in Padua high school.In spite of huge generation gap between both the works they show a unique struggle of women in society, both the plays reveal the women’s strong desire to break society’s biased rules.

The fathers in both the stories set a condition for the younger daughter’s marriage, but the reason behind the condition is based on the time frame of the story.“Taming the Shrew” takes us to the period of male dominancy, during which women are expected to obey the orders of the male and were supposed to get married at a certain age.However, the director, Gil Junger has modified the play to bring younger generation to the theaters by addressing the issue of pregnancy prior to marriage.The father in the film wants to protect her daughters by imposing no dating law.Both the daughters disagree with this cruel law, but later on this step of their father prove crucial in taking mature decision of their life.On the other hand, Mr Minola is worried about the marriage of her older daughter, because no person is willing to share life with her.He was following the tradition of society by expecting marriage of her daughter at a fix age; otherwise his reputation would be in trouble.

In Shakespeare’s play marriage is presented as an exchange of materialistic wealth, there is no place for romance or love in the relationship.Every character in the play has his or her motto behind the every action.I couldn’t see any love between daughters and parents, nor between Hurotio and Kate.The movie on the other hand describes an overwhelming bond between father and daughter’s relationship.The question arise was there any existence of unconditional love during the Shakespeare’s era?Was Kate behaving obscured because she didn’t have anyone to love her infinitely?Or was she trying to make statement that she is also a human being, she also possesses equivalent rights as that of a man.

We can see many elements of gender biased society in, “Taming the Shrew”.If a women starts revolting and opposing the traditional norms then she is considered a shrew, the condition of women in Shakepear’s play is demoralizing, where the whole emphasis is given on the behavior of the Shrew(Kate) while the dirty politics of male character is somewhat neglected.Kate in the story was outspoken and always insulted others to shut their mouths, but there isn’t any clue that why she was behaving like a Shrew.This half left mystery is resolved by director Gil Junger in his movie, “10 things I hate about you”.Shakephere’s wrote the play to entertain the people of Elizabethan era, while 10 things is predominantly made for people of 21st century.An important transition from patriarchal to free unbinding society can be noticed in both the works.

In the play, various events covering Kate’s struggle, Patriarchal plot and struggle between the characters reveal the status of women in the 16th century.On the contrary, 10 things portrays a feminist character enjoying all the rights in free American society.The star cast of 10 Things comprises of popular Hollywood stars Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles. Director of the movie introduces the materialistic American society possessing electrical and mechanical gadgets and freely conveying sexual knowledge. Modern America encourages equality of sexes which cannot be seen in Shakespeare’s play, which stretches the boundary between two genders.

The overriding theme of both the texts is marriage. In The Taming of the Shrew, marriage is presented as an institution, where people are expected to be present. It takes the form of business when contenders with high financial status race to acquire their favorite girl. This marriage is deprived of any love or feelings. The pot of the Taming of the Shrew takes me back to my old tradition of my country, where groom was selected by the parents rather than by a bride. But, the situation in the play is different as Katherine at the end selects groom of her choice. In the movie , 10 Things however, the rules are completely contrasting. There is no obstacle regarding economic difference between bride and groom, the marriage here is not treated as form of institution, instead it’s treated as a everlasting bond full of love and sacrifice for each other. The only barrier in girls is the unwritten rule set by their father, the condition of not dating. The father stops girls for dating, due to fear of unprecedented outcome of dating in the so called forward society.

Another factor which differentiates both the work is the use of language and text. The characters in The taming of the Shrew adopts an Elizabethan or Shakespearean language, a language which is based on social status of a person. Shakespeare uses a formal language to explain minutest detail of every character in the play. The text is so wonderfully attributed that any reader can judge the speaker no matter he starts to read from anywhere in the play. On the other hand director Junger had additional medium, a medium of expression, the movie, through which a person can express his feeling without speaking a single word. He adjusted the dialogue in the movie to the level so that the new generation can understand it. The characters in the play as well as in the movie are masked with dual personality. For example Lucentio presents himself as a French scholar. Similarly, in the movie Bianca’s lover masks himself as if he knows French and starts developing interest in French.

Lastly, one area which differentiates both the work is the number of ways the text is responded to.The Shrew was composed when women were struggling to develop their identity in a patriarch dominated society. It was the period when the freedom of women was shunned by giving no sensible reasons.They were treated as puppet whose deeds were controlled by her maters, here in the case of Katherine the role of master is played by the society and also to some extent by her father. Women never dared to revolt in this male dominated society, I am looking forward to do research related to the brave women in the Shakepearean era. I want to know what their fate was, were they curbed or they succeeded in changing the point of view of the authoritarian society. Four centuries later 10 things face different set of social rules, the women can be seen now at every peak position in the society.They are rewarded after a long lasting struggle of existence, now they are not just looked upon as a care taker.But, when the position of American women is weighed with the position of women of other underdeveloped of developing countries, there exists a huge generation gap between them.No doubt the women in America are more self reliant and motivated, but there is lot to be done for the women residing in third world countries.

Work Cited

Shakespeare, William. “The Taming of The Shrew”.Desmet, Har, Miller.Prentice Hall Literature Portfolio.New Jersey, 2007.

10 Things I hate About You.Dir.Gil Junger.Perf. Heath Ledger, Julia Stiles, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Larisa Oleynik and Andre Keegan.Touchstone Pictures, 1999.DVD.