The Taming of the Shrew, Induction & Act I

“Frame your mind to mirth and merriment, / Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life” (Ind.ii.26-7).

The objective of this exercise is to help student’s develop an opinion on how and why the Induction functions in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. In doing so, we will discuss several aspects of the Induction as well as the literary device it employs, the suspension of disbelief.

Before we go any further, though, the question must be asked: What’s so important about the Induction that a teacher would choose to spend class time focusing on it? The answer is, by no stretch of the imagination, a simple one. It’s easy, I think, to gloss over the Induction. Indeed, in the history of the play’s production, the practicality and effectiveness of the Induction have been debated. Especially when looking at film productions and adaptations, it’s easy to see how, rather than grappling with the issues presented by the use of an induction, the Induction can simply be omitted. No film adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew has included or incorporated the Sly plot.

However, the Induction of The Taming of the Shrew is essential to the existence of the play as a comedy. Without it, modern audiences especially are thrust into a reality that is unbelievable. The Induction functions as a doorway into the alternative reality that is the Taming plot. Indeed, Sly and his “wife,” Barthol’mew operate as a comedic model for the marriage of Petruchio and Katharina. For an audience that has seen the Induction, the “taming” of Katharina, the making of her into a proper wife, is no more real than the existence of Barthol’mew as a proper wife. Therefore, because of the allegorical ties between the themes and characters of the Sly plot and the Taming plot, the play’s comedic integrity becomes clearer.

Class Activity:

To start, I would like to ask: who can think of a film that takes place or is set in some sort of alternative reality? Discuss films and their alternative realities.

I thought about The Matrix, released in 1999, written and directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski, and starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Anne Moss. (Note: I decided to use this film because I thought that it was appropriate for our class. This activity can easily be adapted to use a film that is more appropriate for younger audiences.) So, I’d like to show a clip from The Matrix:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuEd2GDvOKM&feature=related

OK, if we’re thinking about today, about sitting in his classroom, in our reality, what is unbelievable about this clip? Examples: The agent and Neo dodge bullets, Neo is struck by a bullet and is seemingly OK, Trinity is able to have a pilot program uploaded to her brain in a matter of seconds, etc.

This is all unbelievable, right? So, what makes us believe it? Why are we captivated by this film and its reality? Discuss.

We believe because the writers and directors of the film have constructed premises that allow us to believe. In The Matrix, we start out in a reality that is similar to the one that we recognize. Neo is Mr. Anderson, who has a normal job in a normal city. All of this is normal or somewhat familiar to us, therefore we believe. And since we’ve been grounded in reality, as the plot grows more and more fantastical and unbelievable, we, the audience, grow with it. Essentially, we are transported into an alternate reality, in which we believe that Neo has the ability to dodge bullets and learning to fly helicopters takes only a matter of seconds.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined a phrase to describe this transition from what we perceive as our reality to the alternate fictitious reality. In his Biographia Literaria (1817), Coleridge explains that there are “two cardinal points of poetry,” the second of which is “the power of giving the interest of novelty by the modifying colours of imaginations” (526). He goes on, saying, “So as to transfer, from our inward nature, a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith” (Coleridge 526). In other words, the suspension of disbelief is the ability of a fictional work to temporarily replace the premises of reality with those established by the work of fiction.

As we watch The Matrix, we replace the premises of our reality for those established by the film. In the same way that The Matrix grounds itself in reality and then continues on into its alternate reality, The Taming of the Shrew grounds itself and then moves forward into an alternative reality. As Neo’s seemingly normal life serves as an entrance into the new reality of The Matrix, the Induction functions as a gateway into the world of the Taming-plot. Indeed, the Taming-plot is only a play being performed for the transmuted tinker, Christopher Sly.

In The Taming of the Shrew, it is the Induction which primarily accomplishes the task of temporarily replacing the premises of the audience’s reality; it helps the audience to suspend its disbelief. As Christopher Sly’s reality is replaced, though indefinitely, the audience’s reality is replaced temporarily:

Am I a lord? And have I such a lady?
Or do I dream? Or have I dreamed till now?
I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak,
I smell sweet savors, and I feel soft things.
Upon my life, I am a lord indeed,
And not a tinker nor Christopher Sly.
Well, bring our lady hither to our sight,
And once again a pot o’ the smallest ale. (Ind.ii.63-70)

As Sly comes to believe that he is a lord, we, the audience, assimilate his reality and are, as he is, transferred into an alternate reality. As Maynard Mack has said, “We [the audience] awake out of our ordinary reality of the alehouse or whatever other reality ordinarily encompasses us, to the superimposed reality of the playhouse, and find that there (at any rate, so long as a comedy is playing) wishes are horses and beggars do ride” (142).

Discuss the ways in which the Induction helps to transplant audience members from their “ordinary reality” to the reality of the Taming plot.

Questions for Discussion:

If we understand that the Taming plot isn’t real, as Neo’s ability to dodge bullets isn’t real, how does that impact the way that we look at the Taming plot? Does it make it easier for us, as a modern audience, to understand the play as a comedy?

According to Victor Cahn, the Induction “thematically anticipates the heart of The Taming of the Shrew” (542). How would you say this is true? Thematically, how are the two plots tied? Consider the betting of the Lord and his hunting party on their dogs, especially the amount they wager, in relation to the bets placed by the husbands on their wives in the last scene of the play.

Supposing that there are character parallels, who might Sly prefigure, and who might Barthol’mew prefigure?

Taking into account the fact that stage does not reappear at the conclusion of the Taming plot, what staging problems might there be? Is this why most modern productions and all film adaptations have decided not to include the Induction?

If you were staging The Taming of the Shrew would you choose to include or in some way incorporate the Induction? Why or why not? What is added by including it, or what is lost by omitting it?

Works Cites:

Cahn, Victor L. Shakespeare the Playwright: A Companion to the Complete Tragedies, Histories, Comedies, and Romances. Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 1996.

Coleridge, Samuel taylor. “Biographia Literaria.” Romanticism: an Anthology. Ed. Duncan Wu. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998. 525-8.

Mack, Maynard. “Engagement and Detachemnet in Shakespeare’s Plays.” The Taming of the Shrew. Gen Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New York: Penguin Group, 1998. 141-3.