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Theme of Appearance vs Reality

ts with the driving love felt by Lucentio. The "love battle" of Kate and Petruchio raises a number of issues related to the question of appearance and reality, for the play has been argued by critics for years as to whether the two can be seen as true lovers who find their love in fighting or as some sort of satire on that idea, one that turns the normal love relationship upside down. Is Petruchio play-acting in order to tame the shrew, or is the shrew tamed by a man every bit as coarse and ill-tempered as he seems? The play has been given both readings and a number of readings in between.

There is a more overt example of deliberate illusion in the subplot with Christopher Sly, the drunken tinker, who is carried off by a lord and his hunting party to play a part in an illusion they create just to fool the tinker:

Persuade him that he hath been lunatic, And, when he says he is, say that he dreams, For he is nothing but a mighty lord. This do, and do it kindly, gentle sirs; It will be pastime passing excellent, If it be husbanded with modesty (I.1.67-72).

The tinker accepts this illusion with little protest and plays his part as if it had always been his. Shakespeare here is displaying some of the artistic conventions by which dramatic illusion is achieved. In doing so, he seems as well to be drawing a comparison with the story of Petruchio and Kate so that it is easier to see Petruchio's posture as play-acting, for it is actually a play-within-a-play, performed for Christopher Sly as well as for the audience. For Sly, it may be a dream or it may be real, just as Shakespeare seems to be asking the audience to wonder about the reality of the

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Theme of Appearance vs Reality. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 11:08, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1680683.html