"Gentlemen, forward to the bridal dinner:(Katherina, The Taming of the Shrew, III, ii, 221-223)
I see a woman may be made a fool
If she had not a spirit to resist."
I've been informed that explaining the meaning behind the last two lines above will be included in a test I am to take in English class tomorrow. I could have spent the afternoon tearing my hair out at the roots in an effort to go into whatever layers these lines might hold, but I decided to ignore the words instead. I'm still deciding whether or not that was a good decision.
"If she had not a spirit to resist": would that mean the same as "if she didn't have the willpower and/or strength to resist" or "if she didn't have someone to resist"? A thought to ponder. I would feel like a cheater if I asked for help on the question, which is why I haven't talked about it. My pride is in question here, which is a little bit of a sad reality. She could be saying that she would be made a fool of if she didn't have the strength to resist standing there to argue with Petruchio, her newly wedded husband. Is that exactly what it means, or am I missing those "layers" behind the statement that my teacher so cryptically referred to?
Could she be saying that she might be made a fool of if she let Petruchio, as her husband, order her as he pleased and carry out his dominance to zero resistance on her part, regardless of his demands? If she blindly follows him now and accepts his word as law, no matter how horrendous, eventually he might have her doing things that turn her into an utter fool if she doesn't have the strength to stand up for herself? Even in a male-dominant society where women are expected to submit, if she submits without question she may end up looking the fool for not fighting back when the occasion warrants it? And yet at the same time, should she continually display her so-criticized shrewish nature she might go over the top and, thus, look the fool. To abandon her shrewd mannerisms would be to let Petruchio win, also making her the fool, if she doesn't resist his efforts and maintain her reputation. Yet to keep her shrewish ways would be to offer society further reason to mock her and keep away from her. She would remain oppressed in her own home by a father who seems to favour his younger daughter over her.
Is that layered enough for you, dear teacher? Maybe I'm entirely missing the point of the question.
Perhaps she's under the impression that after all this time of being submissive to males, women have not resisted and are thus made fools of. They've become the laughing-stock of society and she doesn't want to put up with that any more. But of course, one doesn't simply step out from millenniums' worthy of tradition, placing a toe out of line would make her further a fool under the ridicule of those around her, and she must resist her feelings of rebelliousness in order to maintain her already broken reputation.
Those lines alone could mean any number of things! How much am I actually supposed to draw out of them? I have no idea. I feel a little overwhelmed, to say the least. When a teacher says they're layered with meaning, how many layers does he mean? Am I over-thinking it? Am I not thinking it over enough? Have I completely missed every bull's-eye, every point, I was supposed to come close to? English class is so terribly stressful in grade 12...
Cheers, you intense teacher, you. I suppose I'll know the answers to my questions after tomorrow's test.
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