Aja+Wallace



**//10 days = Shrew + Lies - Truth...//**  **Comparing "Taming of the Shrew" to " How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days"** In society being in control is everything. To control is to have power, and everybody wants to have power and feel in charge of another being. Sometimes the easiest way to get the other person to do or say what you want is by telling them opposite of what is desired. Which provides confusion thus making the other person in the relationship more sustainable to giving in unknowingly to be controlled. As romantic comedies the book "Taming of the Shrew" and movie "How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days", both focuses on the control in relationships between men and women. The characters are not always fully aware what is going on in the other persons head, yet continues to stay on focus with anything that will allow control to be received. In the play "Taming of the Shrew" the younger sister Bianca wants to marry off but she is not permitted until her older sister Katherine does first. The problem is that, Katherine is such a "shrew" no man in his right might wants to marry her. Everyone who is anyone knows of such ways Katherine has. Petruchio was paid to get her to believe that the he is in love with her and the way she acts does not alter him in anyway. Poor Katherine knows nothing of this mockery and began to believe the bond of words at which Pertruchio spoke. In the 2003 film "How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days" The character Benjamin Barry is an advertising executive and he considers himself to be a ladies' man. He is trying to win a big campaign by betting that he will be able to make any woman (Andie Anderson) fall in love with him within 10 days. Little does he know Andie Anderson writes for a magazine and she was told to write an article on "How to Lose a Guy in 10 days”. All the little things that Andie does to drive Ben crazy are quite comical, he reacts to them but only behind Andies' back because he thinks he is making her fall in love. ** It is believed by many, if at lest one person coming into a relationship thinks that they can control the other, reverse psychology is the answer which causes deception and not being honest. Which in return **** will control the partner, and make them do and say what is wanted of them. **

** "Take this if me, Kate of my consolation: Hearing thy mildness praised in every town, Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded (Yet not so deeply as to belongs.) Myself am moved to woo the for my wife . ** **"** (Act 2, Scene 1, line numbers 198-202, Petruchio)

In this quote from the play "Shew” Petruchio has just met Katherine and is already started to express how is wants Katherine to thinks he feels. His aim is to win her love, by telling her all the things she wants to hear. Due to the fact that she is a shrew it is hard for Katherine to get love from the opposite sex, because no man has come along willing to put up with her personality. Petruchio then comes in and decides to pretend that he has been the man she needs in her life and accepts all of her. No matter how shrewd she may be toward him. In doing this he already stared off using reverse psychology, by telling her the things no man has told her before, which was nothing she expected to hear.

Just like Ben planned to do to Andie, when he first met her he started saying a couple of sweet things so her reaction would be to loosen up to him.

In the screen shot above, the character Benjamin Barry from the film is out to dinner with his boss and coworkers. They all start off talking about the best way to sell diamonds to a woman because they are running an advertising campaign. After a few moments the topic of discussion also gets women added to it. One of his coworkers named Green states that " She has to feel giddy, desirous, adventurous, and desperate." Meaning for a women to want to by diamonds she has to be in the desperate, needing to be happy state of mind. Benjamin's response to Greens statement was, " Exactly. The skills required to market diamonds are the same as those needed to make a woman fall in love, yes." For a few minutes Ben, his boss and coworkers debate what a women wants when it comes to love and diamonds. Ben then starts to talk about how he listens, respects women and loves them. Then jumps from selling diamonds to women, to selling himself to any women he wants at any giving time.

Which is the same thing Petruchio thought he was doing with Katherine, when he heard of her ways. He was confident enough to think no matter how Katherine will act towards him, he would be able to also sell himself to her, no matter what. When you sell something to someone you are usually deeply persuading another something that is not true. In exchanging it for something, in both of those causes they are exchanging for the "love" of the women. Or what the women think is love.

**" No, not a whit. I find you passing gentle. 'Twas told me you were rough, and coy, and sullen, And now I find report a very liar. For thou art pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous, But in slow in speech, yet sweet as springtime flowers ." **  (Act 2, Scene 1, line numbers256 -261, Petruchio)

In this line from the "Shrew" Petruchio has been talking with Katherine, he then decides to tell her that all things he has heard about her not being nice and sweet are not true. Nor are those things that he wants to believe are true. To him she is as sweet as a flower. That was his response to Katherine after she told him to leave her alone because she would just annoy him if she stayed, so it would be best to let her go. Petruchio was trying to make her believe that she was not an annoyance; in fact she was something extraordinary. Usually a man can get a women to think he thinks so high of her, that can lead the women into having deeper feelings and then falling in love. With someone who "loves" them just the way they are despite anything else.

Just as Andie thought in the film, right before she met Benjamin, she was talking with her boss, coworkers and friends about how she was going to drive guy away in a week an a half. She planed on doing so by using, deception and bing dishonest to get a guy, (in her case the guy being Ben but not being aware of his hidden agenda). She was pushing him away and not getting Ben to "love" her. Doing the same thing as Petruchio, trying to control the other person in the relationship, get them believing their words and actions. So they could get them to do what they wanted. Petruchio wanted to get Katherine and Andie was out to get dumped and both of these characters were stopping at nothing to get just that.

In the screen shot above, the character Andie Anderson is on the right. She is out with her girls after works discussing her plain on driving a guy away by making him believe certain things of her. Making him believe that she is too needy, clingy, and touchy-feely. The common beginning relationship mistakes some people don’t mean to deliberately do. But in her case anything she sets out to do and say is intentional. Andie was going to make herself an expert on what it takes to drive any man out of a women's life in exactly ten days.

Petruchio and Andie both had a time limit on gaining and losing love.

**Conclusion** It was quite ironic, both the movie and book reflect how people in relationship, attach to having power use deception and not being honest to keep it. Andie, Benjamin and Petruchio were all on a mission to mentally control the other partner in the relationship, using reverse psychology. Getting them to do what they wanted by honestly making them feel that everything said and did by them was truly genuine. Thus feeding into societies attitude on dating. If one person in a relationship feels as though they can control the other, then it is used to an advantage to fulfill a requirement. Then advantage being someone believing that they have fallen in love or out of love with the other and wanting to stay in the relationship or depart.