Aspects of comedy: example student response, band 5, Paper 1B, Section B
Here's an example student response to a Section B question in the sample assessment materials, followed by an examiner commentary on the response.
Sample student response: band 5
'If the audience find the ending of The Taming of the Shrew funny then they are the intellectual equivalent of the drunken tinker, Christopher Sly.'
To what extent do you agree with this view?
Remember to include in your answer relevant comment on Shakespeare's dramatic methods.
It is clear that the view expressed in this quotation is from a reader who is focusing on the subjugation of Katherina at the end of the play, a reader who rightly finds subjugation appalling. If the play were not a comedy and if the play were promoting male supremacy and the smashing down by any means possible of women's challenge to that domination, and if audiences found such attitudes 'funny' then it might be fair to say that they 'are the intellectual equivalent of the drunken tinker, Christopher Sly'. But the play 'is' a comedy and there is so much Shakespeare invites us to laugh at, that the view above is surely of limited validity.
Many commentators do see Katherina's final speech as the victory of the superior male over the lowly inferior female, for example Michael Billington, who said that the play is 'totally offensive to our age and society'. But to take the ending of the play so seriously surely overlooks the brilliant irony with which the final speech is laced, and fails to acknowledge the possible insincerity of its orator. The speech contains many parallels with a speech made at the beginning of the play in which the Page, dressed as Sly's wife says:
'My husband and my lord, my lord and husband,
I am your wife in all obedience'.
This statement is obviously false, as false as its deliverer! The same point could equally be made about Katherina's delivery of similar lines:
'Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign…'
It is as insincere as when Katherina agrees with Petruchio that the moon is the sun or whatever he wills it to be and when she says that Vincentio is a 'young budding virgin' if her husband will have it so.
Given the length of the final speech and the energy with which it is delivered, it is hard to see it as a speech of submission anyway. Katherina's speech is surely an example of sustained irony. Whether Petruchio is actually a party to this is debatable though. I tend to think he is. When Petruchio sets up the challenge to the other men at the end, it so much smacks of a set piece, a wager to establish his superiority over them that it is hard to think he is taking a chance. From Katherina's reaction, it seems that she and Petruchio have achieved an understanding at the end, perhaps as Petruchio suspected they might from the start when he says that where 'two raging fires meet together/ they do consume the thing that feeds their fury'. It could be here that what Petruchio and Katherina reach is a coexistence of harmony to be celebrated at the end by their going to bed ('Come, Kate, We'll to bed'). What happens between Katherina and Petruchio is not a bad tempered woman being suppressed and ultimately controlled by a superior male but a beautifully negotiated peace, agreed by both characters through a mutual understanding, an understanding which grows as the play progresses and is so subtle that it goes unnoticed by the other characters and indeed by some readers of the play. Perhaps as Germaine Greer says 'only Kates make good wives, and then only to Petruchios'. Shakespeare anyway makes us guard against seeing Katherina as downtrodden and destroyed by giving the final words of the play to Lucentio in which he says 'tis indeed a wonder that 'she will be tamed so'. Quite simply we are not to believe it.
It is important to note also that Katherina's speech is an instruction to the widow to obey her husband Hortensio and because her audience is so specific, it is easy to see within it a heap of irony, both from Shakespeare and Katherina. Both the stage and theatre audience know that Hortensio is one of a group of men who are fools who should not be revered. He loses out to Lucentio in his bid for Bianca and then swiftly changes his allegiance to the widow whom he thinks he can tame by using Petuchio's taming school methods. That he can't is part of the comedy at the end of the play (the Widow says that she will not come to such 'a silly pass' as to show duty to her husband). Lucentio, too, though the winner in the Bianca plot, is also made to look foolish at the end, when upon losing the wager based on her obedience, is told plainly by her: 'More fool you for laying on my duty'. Lucentio is far from being the idealistic perfect man. Now that the delicate stage of courtship is over he discovers, as Bianca does herself, that she has the strength of character to overpower him. Her rebellious side is not in the foreground for much of the play because the focus is on her shrewish sister Katherina who is violent, aggressive and sharp tongued. But even at the start Bianca is wilful if only the men could see it ('I am no breeching scholar in the schools,/ I will not be bound to hours nor 'pointed times'). It should come as no surprise that she thinks duty is foolish. The battle between the sexes is a key comedic ingredient and the humiliation of Lucentio and Hortensio at the end contributes to the humour.
The play's compass and its ability to amuse at the end reach further than the sermon of marriage. The play questions the nature of theatre itself and the relationship between disguise and reality and this is heightened at the end. The layering technique of not only the plot and the sub plots, but the Christopher Sly induction exercises some of the powers of theatre and particularly of comedy. Theatre is symbolism and the idea of a play within a play is a kind of experimentation where the characters draw attention to the fantasy world in which they exist. There is room to say that the 'Taming plot' is merely Sly's dream (his fantasy) of male supremacy after being made a fool of by the hostess at the inn. The Sly plot reminds the audience that they are not observing reality and this surely softens any of the serious questions that Shakespeare asks during Katherina's 'taming'; it also ensures that her submissive speech in the final scene is not taken at face value.
So, the question's statement which suggests that audiences who find the play funny are of no greater intellect than Christopher Sly is wrong. Christopher Sly, it should be noted, is an important part of the ending of the play (even though no words or specific actions are given to him in Shakespeare's 1594 version, the frame is completed in the later version A Shrew and sometimes in modern performances). The Taming of the Shrew is the play that Sly is watching and we are watching him watching that. We laugh finally at the way he is gulled. He watches the play believing he is a lord and Katherina's speech is his wish fulfilment. Audiences have the advantage of Sly and know that it is all a trick and 'that' is what makes the ending of the play funny.
Examiner commentary
This is a confident and perceptive response. Even though this is a closed book exam, the candidate clearly knows the ending of the play really well and is able to argue a case perceptively by using specific evidence from the text. There is a very tight focus on the task and the candidate is able to make a number of very solid points. Quotations are used sensibly but there are very good close references to the play which work very well.
AO1
This is a sophisticated argument and one where the candidate takes on other critical opinions and is uncompromising in the argument against them. Ideas are very well structured and there is some assured use of critical terminology. The candidate's expression is at times impressive. And there is some depth in the response which is both interesting and sensitive to the demands of dramatic comedy.
AO2
There is perceptive understanding of Shakespeare's dramatic methods and the candidate shows how Shakespeare uses irony to set up ambiguities in the text. There is also excellent commenting on the play's structure. Comments about the Induction and the ending of the play are integrated well into the argument. There is also a perceptive understanding of the play as an art form.
AO3
The candidate perceptively engages with gender and theatrical contexts in relation to the comedic genre.
AO4
There is an excellent understanding of the comedic aspect of humour. In writing about how audiences might think the end of the play funny, the student connects in an assured way with how humour operates in comedy texts.
AO5
There is perceptive and confident engagement with the debate set up in the task. The candidate is aware that other readings might be possible, but argues against such views and drives the argument through to the conclusion in a most coherent way. The candidate incorporates specific critical views in a relevant way and although it is not necessary to quote critics to achieve Band 5, the incorporation of the views works well here.
Overall: Perceptive and assured. This response seems consistent with the Band 5 descriptors.
This resource is part of the Aspects of comedy resource package.