Freytags pyramid and the taming of the shrew?

Answer 1

Freytag's pyramid, or the division of dramatic structure into five parts, was based partly on the fact that Shakespeare's plays are written in five acts. Its application is often mechanically applied to Shakespeare's work, with each act being a Freytag division, rather than using a more organic story arc analysis.

The Freytag pyramid, when applied to comedies basically postulates that the story goes from bad to good in five steps, the third being that in which good starts to overcome bad. In Taming of the Shrew the "bad" is, one supposes, the bad-tempered Kate, while the "good" is the "tamed" Kate. The climax, or turning point, although one would suspect it to fall in Act 3, is more likely on this analysis to fall in Act 4 Scene 1, with Petruchio's line "Thus have I politicly begun my reign"

The "five-step" analysis, so convenient to five-act plays, suffers in this play because it is , in fact in six acts, the first being the Induction. The Induction is not often played as there is not a balancing conclusion at the end to tell us what happens to Christopher Sly. If there were, Freytag's pyramidal analysis would prove utterly useless.