Example of Empathy in “The Taming of the Shrew”

Empathy is the ability to feel others’ emotions as if they are their own. There are two types of empathy. Altruistic empathy is the general type with a spectrum measuring how one is willing enough to be within another’s shoes to feel their situation they are in. According to Daniel Batson’s Empathy-Altruistic Thesis, “Feeling empathy for [a] person in need evokes motivation to help [that person] in which
these benefits to self are not the ultimate goal of helping; they are unintended
consequences” (Batson & Shaw 1991, p. 114). Another type is egotistic empathy, which the use of empathy is emphasized with negative action as a consequence. The examples of both are used in the film, “ The Taming of the Shrew,” to show how a character can use empathy to be connected to another. One of them is when Katherine places herself into his husband, Petruchio, to understand what he may wish on her to stay obedient. After all, Petruchio’s goal is to tame Katherine to the extent of having her behave like a fair lady. This is an example of altruistic empathy from Katherine knowing Petruchio’s goal and willing to obey him at every command. Another example is when all of Lucentio’s servants play along with their master so that he can secretly date Bianca and make their marriage a surprise. Everything is going fine until his father came to visit and was extremely baffled about this nonsense, for which Tranio, one of Lucentio’s servants, begs for him to quit playing the game and tell his father that everything is alright. This is an example of egoistic empathy for which Lucentio’s scheme may benefit himself with getting himself closer to Bianca, it also comes at a price on which it will emit negative thoughts on other people he does not expect.