Category: Coffeehouse #3

Thomas Needham

November 21, 2022

ENG 2400

Assignment 8

When discussin the term empathy, at first it would automatically look at a character who might invoke a kind of sympathy for the person or in this character. In both reading of the book The Taming Of The Shrew by William Shakespeare and the film of the same name directed by Frankco Zefferelli there are so many characters and many points of interest including empathy. I decided to focus on Catarina due to most probably assuming due to her character traits that she should probably receive no  empathy. Mean spirited, demanding, very loud in both her attitude and opinion the reader would probably assume she had no empathy and no sympathy from the reader  but should be treated like the villain in the story.  Egotistic empathy which is defined as  empathy translated to having consequences in a negative way despite our feelings for a person. It can vary with it’s consequences such as guilt, shame  and social reasoning. In this essay I will look at the egotistic empathy and the examples of it when relating to Catarina. There are positive conclusions to Catarina but examining her character would show at first to someone on the outside looking in just as a casual reader Catarina might have no empathy.

When we start the story we see the various differences between Bianca and her older sister Caterina. Where Bianca is polite and kind hearted to all Caterina is probably the rudest, demanding shrew. Her father Bauptista lets people know how violent ways and attitude. Egotistic shows that though it is could be understanding to the reader why it would be possible not to feel any empathy for this certain character. Bauptista’s reasoning for wanting someone to marry her shows no compassion as well for he is treating the marriage  like business and  also a kind of experiment with Petruchio  to see if he can keep Catarina :under control” In Bauptista’s explanation of her ways by stating  “Hilding of a devlish spirit.” (Act II, p. 27-28) Bauptista grants the marriage of both his daughter and Petruchio more because of him being fed up with his earstwild daughter. By doing this it does show a form of egotistic empathy knowing there might be negative consequences regardless of how it might look to the reader of aman trying to do right by his daughter.  Evenn during the whole courting period of Catarina her attitude and behavior doesn’t change even when Petruchio starts inflicting his will upon her and being a controller.

Even though it is not shown fully in either the book or the film, instances of Pertruchio’s commands to Catarina kind of gets a little ridiculous. The one example is both of them on their way to the wedding where Pertruchio demands that there  is the moon shining and if she didn’t agree they will not attend Bianca’s wedding. This brings out the shame reasoning of Egotistic empathy. Despite who Catarina is in this story and how she conducts herself it would feel like she had it coming and probably deserves everything she gets from Pertruchio. But what Pertruchio is doing is meant not to just shame her but show her who is in control of the relationship, when walking to the wedding he insists   or better yet demands that it is a full moon shining rather than the sun, evidence shows that it is indeed the sun but Pertruchio’s demands and position trumps any idea that it is the sun and Catarina is forced to agree or miss her own sisters wedding.   Same can be said for his choosing of wardrobe at  the wedding. It is not that Pertruchio has poor taste in clothes but rather he is aware of how  ridiculous and out of the norm his clothes is and he does to basically once again show Catarina who wears the pants in this relationship. There is also enabling facters from other character’s in this story, Portensio shows the control Pertruchio wields by explaining to Catarina  to listen to Pertruchio. Kind of identifies with modern times is that there are people around the abuser who will side and even help the abused abide by the person who is the abuser.

Utter submission of Pertruchio becomes evident where Catarina submits to Petruchio “I pray, since we have  come so far  and be it moon or sun or what you please.” (Act IV and Act V P. 13-15) The funny thing about this story is that Catarina is learned how to ober Pertruchio and now knows how to still  get her way while surrendering to Pertruchio’s commands.  She is still wild,mean spirited,demanding but most importantly manipulative  but in a way is playing Pertruchio just to let him believe he is in  control. This is  what we mean by egotistic empathy is that this is a negative consequence towards the relationship and that it could be a bad idea. Bauptista will not allow Bianca to marry until there is a suiter for Caterina with the idea that whoever marries her will receive Bauptista’s dowry which brings in the social standing for egotistic empathy.Marrying Catarina will make Pertruchio a rich man with 20,000 Crowns and half of Bautpista’s land. Remember at the beginning Catarina wants nothing to do with  Pertruchio by even running away from him in the story ( Act II,scene I P.  255

This essay ends with how egotistic empathy is proven through out the story of Taming Of The Shrew and even today is a very relatable story amongst readers. The empathy felt for Catarina is unusual but meets the criteria of the definition egotistic empathy. Guilt, shame and social standing of why empathy is there and how it is possible to have empathy for a character that shows no redeeming quality.

Throughout “Taming of the Shrew” all of the characters are trying to further their own personal goals and schemes. There are moments of empathy portrayed by characters that appear quite subtle. An example of this is when Pertruchio comforts and helps Katherine walk after they have a long winded chasing and fighting scene with one another. In that moment, Pertruchio was exhibiting altruistic empathy as he felt genuine concern for Katherine as she appeared to be in pain. Another moment where there was an example of empathy was when Biondello acted as if he did not know who Lucentio’s father was in order to keep their scheme intact. Biondello was showing us an example of egoistic empathy as he did not want to go against the orders of his master and potentially be harmed. The use of egotistic empathy does support my initial claim that all the characters in this play were mainly trying to carry out plans that would better serve them, but this does not apply to the moment between Pertruchio and Katherine. Pertruchio had a true moment of empathy for Katherine that was outside of his original scheme and plans to further his own agenda.

The 1967 adaptation of “The taming of the shrew” directed by Franco Zeffirelli displays examples of egotistical empathy. Bapista is particular acts from a place that benefits him, that helps him get rid of the eldest daughter Katherine. He doesn’t hide it at all that he prefers Bianca, he shouts in from the streets in the beginning of the film. If it was altruistic empathy, Baptista he’d want his daughter to continue being herself, protect her from manipulation that Petruchio causes Katherine. Another character that I’d like to highlight is Petruchio who cares about his own wealth, and in the end that is what he receives he also accomplishes his goal of taming the shrew. Lucentio acts for love, butthis love is a lie from the start, he does it to have an advantage over the other men who are fighting for Bianca’s hand in marriage. It seems that none of the characters act from a place of selfness, they all act for personal gain. Their behavior demonstrates this in how they all act with one another, how they speak to each other. I’ve spoken about three of the men in the play, no women act from a place of any sort of empathy, I highly doubt they are allowed to either.

The taming of the shrew directed by Frank Zeffirelli, is a film full of flawed characters who are plotting against one another in order to gain a reward. Throughout the film I did not believe any of the characters were capable of feeling altruistic-empathy. None of the characters acted out of concern for another characters feelings or condition. This includes Baptista, a man who presents himself as a man who cares for his daughters futures, but takes no account of their feeling about who they marry and only chooses their partners based on their wealth. However there are examples of characters showing empathy due to guilt and shame. At the end of the scene where Petruchio is courting Katherine and she looks injured, Petruchio only helped her because he felt guilty for causing her pain, and he wanted to be able to parade the two of them in front of Baptista while he had his arms around her. In the scene where Lucentio reveals his true identity to Baptista and his father, I believe he chose to do that in this moment because he realized the consequences of his actions. He saw that his real father was being arrested and at that moment chose to do the right thing to save him. As far as the viewer was aware, Lucentio would have let his scheme go on as long as he needed and only revealed himself when it suited him.

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.

Hi Students,

This is where to post Coffeehouse #3