Kate

Kate is the sharp-tongued, wild and “shrewish” elder daughter of Baptista in Shakespeare’s much-performed 1590/94 play, “The Taming of the Shrew”. Kate has what we today would consider some very valid objections to the institution of marriage and the roles of men and women therein. Poor Kate – she is being forced into an unwanted marriage because her father will not allow the sweet younger sister, Bianca, to be married before the elder. (Bianca, in fact, is being auctioned off to the highest bidder, in the usual Shakespearean whirl of subterfuge, chicanery and double identities.) Long criticized for the physical abuse enacted by husband upon wife in a comical setting, the play remains one of Shakespeare’s most controversial. Whether or not Kate actually succumbs willingly to Petruchio, or whether she only appears to do so and works within the limitations of her circumstances, she is one woman not to be taken lightly. Our suggestion: put it in the context of its time and enjoy it – a little politically correct attitude goes a long way. We’re voting on the side that says #1 – it shines an early light upon the ancient inequality of the sexes, and #2 – it’s all in fun.

Kate is the put-upon younger sister of Nicholas Nickleby in Charles Dickens’ 1838/39 third (serialized) novel of the same name, Nicholas Nickleby, or the Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. After their father dies, leaving them penniless, the little family must rely upon the charity of an uncle, a heartless man who really cares nothing about them. Kate is forced to work for a while as a milliner, and she and her mother endure uncomfortable lodgings, while Nicholas is off earning a living. Kate, while gentle in the way of her contemporaries, shows considerable fortitude in her hard life, working hard, saving her virtue from the notorious Sir Hawk, avoiding her harsh uncle and – finally – finding her true reward in true love with the fortuitously named Frank Cheeryble.