Wooing, Charming, and Taming

Wooing, Charming, and Taming

Comparing “Taming of the Shrew” to “50 First Dates”

In “The Taming of the Shrew” the idea of a man pursuing and trying to woo a woman is still present today. The character Petruchio is very persistent in having Katherine as his wife and to make her his. Similarly in the movie, 50 First Dates, the main character Henry makes up his mind to woo Lucy who has short term memory less, so he has to win her over again every day.

Petruchio and Henry have both set their hearts on the woman of their choosing, however the way they approach their each individual situation with different tactics. Petruchio’s problem is the fact that Katherine is very adamant on resisting him, but that makes it easier for him to push her towards him. He finds her weak points to get her to comply with him. However, Henry has to come up with new ways each day to win over Lucy due to the fact that she does not remember anything the next morning of each day. Both situations have humorous context and also different ideas of male courtship and dating. Both of these show that society believes in male determination to get what they want no matter what the obstacle and that to win over a female there has to be persistency until she gives in.

“The poorest service is repaid with thanks, And so shall mine before you touch the meat.”

(Act 4 Sc. 3 (p. 164) lines 46-48)

In this quote, Petruchio is making Katharine say thank you to him for giving her food, even though he is the one who has deprived her of it. This is one of his tactics he uses for her to comply to him or else she would face consequences that she would not like. By making her behave and earn the things she wants to do he is able to “tame” Katherine and her resistance towards him.

Henry finds himself in a situation where he tries to have breakfast with Lucy each day, using different methods to approach her.

In this scene, it is one of the many days Henry has tried to find a way of having breakfast with Lucy. He pretends to cry which catches the attention of Lucy, and she approaches him asking if she can help him. He then continues to “cry,” and say, “I can’t read,” as he is looking at a menu. He pretends to struggle to read it and Lucy seeing this offers to help him how to read and asks him to join her for breakfast. Similar to Petruchio, he manipulates the situation which would bring Lucy to him and she would be the one giving him what he wants.  Petruchio is is using love for selfish reasons while Henry never intended for it to happen in the first place.

His different attempts to catch Lucy’s attention adds humor throughout this part of the movie and also shows the audience that he is doing exactly what he said he wouldn’t do, which is fall for a local. In this situation, he too is making himself fall in love with Lucy without realizing it.

“It shall be moon,or star, or what I list. Or e’er I journey to your father’s house.”

(Act 4 Sc. 5 (p.187) lines 7-10)

Petruchio is twisting his words around to test Katherine on how well she obeys him. He says the moon is shining when it is actually the sun. When Katherine goes to correct him, he threatens that she must believe what he says it is or else they will never make the journey to her fathers house. He tells her there will be consequences which makes Katherine vulnerable to agree to what he says. He doesn’t let go until she agrees with him.

However, Lucy’s loved ones are prohibiting Henry from pursuing anything with her because of her short term memory loss and they want to protect her. Henry is warned to stay away from her.

This scene is a part of an ongoing routine of Henry trying to meet Lucy and talking to her even after her dad had told him to stay away from her. He agrees to not go back to the diner where he used to meet her. Henry thinks of an alternative way, which is by using different methods like this scene where he gets his friend to beat him up in the middle of the road to catch Lucy’s attention. He does so successfully, and Lucy comes to the rescue and beats Henry’s friend with a bat. His new ways of coming up with a way to get Lucy to notice him and talk to him helps him to spend time with her. In “Shrew,” Petruchio is directly trying to get Katherine to be his while Henry is indirectly trying to just spend some time with Lucy no matter what it takes.

In the end, all of Henry’s attempts to get Lucy to live a normal life and to help her with her memory pays off. Henry decides that he loves Lucy too much to ever leave her, so even though her memory does not come back he helps her remember everything every morning by videotape that has all their moments together. This helps the audience see that persistency and wins over in the end. In “Shrew,” Petruchio gets Katherine to obey him after pushing her around and getting rid of her rebelliousness.