Friday, April 17, 2015

My Dearest Kate...

In the last Humanities class of my Sophomore year, Drama, we are going over the roles that women play throughout history. In the first unit which was called Shrew, we went over The Taming Of The Shrew, a play written by William Shakespeare. While going over this play, we were assigned to look deeper into it and try to explore the gender roles that were presented in the play. It was interesting to see how women were seen back in the 16th and 17th century. For the first action project, the class was assigned to create a sonnet addressed to one character in the play, and explain what problem they have to face when it came to addressing gender roles. We had to address that problem with 14 lines because that is how a sonnet is written. At first I had a hard time when it came to picking a character because every character came face to face with a problem and needed a bit of advice. I finally decided to write a sonnet that addressed Kate, and how she knows that letting a man rule over a woman is wrong, yet she allows that to happen to herself. Kate lets her shrewishness side go. It was interesting learning what the word, shrew meant back then, which was a woman who was usually bossy, and public about the disagreements that she had. I also learned how to correctly write a sonnet that would get my message across clearly. Thanks to this unit and this project, I learned about the importance of looking deeper into literature and to look at the different themes that go on in the storyline. I hope you enjoy my sonnet below!



Kate, your thoughts are too much for a man to handle

scaring each man that wanted you as an extra supply

 your affability never shone through

leaving each man running off to cry


“I see a woman may be made a fool, if she had no spirit to resist”

you were the one leaving no room for a man to make a fool out of you

but this time you landed on a man’s short list fighting about the next ado

mirroring the knave that brought you into the game


you fell into the world of husband over wife

now you’re stuck as a bondmaid for the rest of your life

you know the man doesn’t have more power

so why give him that extra flower?



the name Kate will never be tamed

show your power without feeling ashamed.

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