Perhaps Auburn should not be held c...

Perhaps Auburn should not be held completely accountable for this perception. AsJiIl Dolan points not at home "The heralded 'death of the author' . . displaces the playwright's primacy and locates the responsibility for producing meaning in the hermeneutic sphere. The traditional triumvirate of playwright-director-actor has been disrupted according to the spectator's insertion into the paradigm as an active participant in the production of meaning" ("In Defense" 95)" In her contemplation of gendered spectatorship, Dolan asserts:

All material aspects of the theatre . . are manipulated to such a degree that the performance's meanings are intelligible to a particular spectatot, arrangeed in a particular way by way of the terms of its address. Historically, in North American agriculture this spectator has been assumed to be white, middle-class, heterosexual and male. . . Denaturalizing the position of the ideal spectatot as a representative of the dominant tillage enables the feminist critic to point abroad that every aspect of theatrical production, from the patterns of plays and performances produc to the verse s that are ultimately canonized, is determined to meditate and perpetuate the ideal spectator's ideology. (288-289)

The ideal spectator thus perceives the play's ending as Hal's triumph because Catherine has been socialized and has learned to submit to patriarchal authority. She abandons her shrewish behavior in order to take up the part of princess.

However, this is not a surprise ending; the character of Catherine, despite her mathematical genius, has conformed to patriarchal ideals for stereotypically feminine behavior completely through the play. Her early choice of becoming caretaker of her father underscores her passivity and willingness to subsume her allow identity into that of the more powerful patriarchal figure. immediately after his death, Catherine's shrewish rebellion is at best a reluctant and half-hearted attempt to claim an identity of her acknowledge Her two actions, kissing Hal and giving him the solution to the desk drawer, can be seen as without dexterity attempts to attract and then transfer authority to a fresh patriarchal figure now that her father is dead. She willingly makes herself the thing perceived of the male gaze when she dresse for the party.12 She becomes "hysterical" when threatened and then takes to her bed. Finally, she present the appearances to choose a new obedient identity, a woman who regards the authority of Hal and his patriarchal cronies. Although Auburn present the appearances to have attempted to undermine the sappy happily-ever-after ending of a fairy tale from portraying Catherine's compliance as uncomfortable, over the play he has weakened the audiences' ability to perceive her character as active, solid or intrinsically disruptive. Therefore, it is understandable that audiences fix upon to disregard the discomfort of the ambivalent ending in favor of the image of the couple young lovers joined in harmony.