Taming of The Unruly Arab Shrew: El-Degheidy TheReframes Shakespeare’s Comedy for the Arab Screen

The Taming of the Shrew (۱۶۲۳) has been the subject of debate regarding the portrayal of Katherina as a submissive female character. In the Arab world, where patriarchal values are predominant and submissiveness is regarded as an essential trait in women, the play has undergone various adaptations. This paper aims to address an academic gap in the existing literature by closely examining El Degheidy’s cinematic adaptation, Esstakoza [Lobster] (۱۹۹۶), which decontextualize Shakespeare’s play in the modernized Egyptian society. The paper draws on Linda Hutcheon’s adaptation theory, which postulates that adaptations are not mere reproductions of the original text but rather creative responses that transform the source material. Hutcheon’s theory is particularly relevant to cinematic adaptations involving the translation from a telling mode to the showing mode, i.e., visual medium. By analyzing Lobster, the paper demonstrates how the adaptation both challenges and reinforces patriarchal values. The character of Esmat, the Arabic Shrew, is compared and contrasted with Katherina to reveal how the former reconceptualizes the latter in the light of contemporary social codes. The study finds that El Degheidy utilizes modern Arabic social codes to reinterpret Shakespeare’s play in a manner that is pertinent to contemporary audiences. It also reveals that Lobster reconfigures gender relations in a way that is distinct from the original play, without entirely rejecting patriarchal values. These findings highlight the complex and dynamic relationship between the adaptation of Taming of the Shrew and the cultural contexts in which Lobster is produced.