10 Things I Hate About You Vs Taming Of The Shrew
William Shakespeare, a literary genius, composed a famous piece of literature in the late 16th Century that has defied time and became a universal text, valued for more than four hundred years. This famous piece of literature is a play called The Taming of the Shrew . Owing to the plays universal themes and timeless elements, the text has been skillfully and cleverly appropriated to be valued in various periods of time. The film 10 Things I Hate About You, composed in 1999 by writers Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirstin Smith, is one such text that skillfully appropriated the eternal elements of The Taming of the Shrew, inevitably creating a masterpiece that is able to capture and entertain 21st Century audiences. 'Women are made to bear, and so are you' - [2.1.203] In the play, societies attitudes toward women were addressed through the satirical elements rooted in the play. Katherine's soliloquy [5.2.142-85] is evidence of this, and along with the relations between the sexes and the patriarchal notions of the play, helps to portray the values of Elizabethan society. Unlike 10 Things, post-marriage life is an issue addressed in the play that is evidently a popular topic for other literary works of the time. 10 Things tends to focus on the 20th Century American Culture and what is of value at that time. Featuring popular Hollywood stars such as Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles, 10 Things reflects popular culture of the 20th Century. Materialistic things of value in American society such as cars, sex, money and education are all evident and portrayed in the movie. Modern American culture is associated with equality of the sexes; this leads us into the major themes of the texts. A major theme in The Shrew that has been appropriated in 10 Things is marriage. In 10 Things the whole concept of marriage has been appropriated into the idea of 'dating' as the film focuses on a younger generation and it portrays the changing values over four centuries. The Shrew associates...
View Full Essay
