Sammy+Zeisloft

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=// "Taming of the Mean Girls" //= // Comparing Taming of the Shrew to Mean Girls //

The play “Taming of the Shrew” displays clear message that marriage is a symbol of possession. The witty Petruchio takes on the challenge of marrying Katharine, the wildly shrewish daughter of Baptista. His proposal is not such an act of love but more so an act of laziness; Petruchio marries Katharine because he wants a wife no matter how shrewish she may be and since no one else wants to marry her, he takes the offer and makes her his bride. In the 2004 movie “Mean Girls” Regina George is a very well known and popular student at North Shore High School. When a new student Cady Heron comes to the school and takes an interest in Regina’s ex boyfriend, Aaron Samuels, she shows no mercy. In retaliation to Cady’s crush on Aaron Regina gets back together with him and flaunts the relationship in Cady’s face to show her that as an ex boyfriend, Aaron is not only off limits to Cady but a “property” of hers as well. Although the situations are different in many ways, they both prove that a relationship, whether it is old or new, serve as a symbol of possession.

In this scene, Regina George acts like she's going to talk to Aaron for Cady, when she's actually getting him back for herself. Cady watches anxiously as she think Regina is talking her up, when she's actually making fun of her. To annihilate any hopes of Cady ever being with Aaron, Regina concludes her conversation with Aaron with a kiss that shatters Cady's hopes as she watched the whole the whole thing.

“Therefore, if thou know one rich enough to be Petruchio’s wife, be she foul as was Florentius’ love, as old as Sibyl and as curst and shrewd…I come to wive it wealthily in Padua; If wealthily, then happily in Padua.” –Petruchio

This quote from act one, scene two of taming of the shrew displays Petruchio's honest standards for a woman he marries. He doesn't care if she is hideous or shrew, as long as she is wealthy, then he agrees to marry her. Before Petruchio meets the most "curst" Katherine, he agrees to marry her because she is wealthy which shows that he doesn't care if she loves him, or he loves her, just as long as he is not marrying some servent wandering the streets. Petruchio's standards show that he looks at woman like they are items by the way that he seems care for and classify them. If he wanted a wife that he truly loved, he would not marry the first woman who was mentioned to him, he wanted her so he could have the status of being married, and since he was an older and wealthier man, he needed a wealthy woman to pass his fortune down to. It displays how he looked at Katherine as a possession rather than a wife. In the movie mean girls, Regina looks at Aaron as her property since she once dated him, making him off limits to any of her friends which is unfortunate for Cady who has a big crush on him. Trying to talk Cady out of liking him, Regina talks badly about Aaron. = =

== This is a later scene when Regina talks to Cady about liking Aaron. She makes it seem like she is perfectly okay with Cady liking him and even offers to talk to him for her. = =

Quote #2 This quote is from a scene when two suitors promise that they are not going to try to pursue Bianca. This displays how the men lied to one another in order to greaten their individual chances of winning her over. In mean girls, Regina does the same thing when she talks bad about Aaron, hoping that Cady will be less eager to talk to him, when that plan fails, she herself, pursues Aaron, but in the end, neither of them win much like in Tamming of the shrew how neither Hortensio, nor Tranio win Bianca over.

Throughout both of the productions, there was constant competition to win over the one that each individual loved/liked. Hortensio vs. Tranio and Cady vs. Regina. They all came up with clever schemes to outwit their opponents and try to increase their chances of winning. For Hortensio ans Tranio, neither of them won the heart of Bianca, but they slyly tried to woo her with their tricks of disguises and hidden messages. Sadly for them, the real Lucentio won her heart and proudly announced it as the other two tried to act like they didn't care. For Cady and Regina, they both had their ways of sneakily battling, Cady sabotaged Reginas diets and wardrobes while Regina flaunted the fact that she temporarily had Aaron. Both the film and the play show that love is a competition and the prized possession is winning and getting to be with the one you desire.