SOURCE: Gottlieb, Erika. “‘I Will Be Free’: Shakespeare's Ambivalence to Katherina's Challenge of the Great Chain of Being.” In Essays on Shakespeare in Honour of A. A. Ansari, edited by T. R. Sharma, pp. 88-116. Meerut, India: Shalabh Book House, 1986.

In the following essay, Gottlieb contends that The Taming of the Shrew should not be viewed as a farce with a determinate happy ending, but rather that the play demonstrates Shakespeare's ambivalence to feminine assertions of independence from authoritarian, hierarchical tradition.

In spite of the great number of its critics and the wide range of critical directions, most commentators on The Taming of the Shrew insist on reading it as a comedy with a wholeheartedly happy ending. In contrast to this assertion, I suggest that The Taming of the Shrew represents one of the earliest examples of Shakespeare's ambivalence towards the dilemma of individual freedom and equality as...