Literary Analyses

Seeing people solely as how they present themselves is a common lapse in human judgement. William Shakespeare plays with this notion of deceitful appearances in his The Taming of the Shrew, a play in which several of the characters take on disguises in order to achieve their goals. By using clothing as a prominent symbol for deception, and by slowly revealing character, Shakespeare demonstrates that outer appearances are not indicative of a person’s social role or actual characteristics.