Shrew (stock character)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The shrew – an unpleasant, ill-tempered woman characterised by scolding, nagging, and aggression – is a comedic, stock character in literature and folklore, both Western and Eastern. The theme is illustrated in Shakespeare's play The Taming of the Shrew.
As a reference to actual women, rather than the stock character, shrew is considered old-fashioned, and the synonym scold (as a noun) is archaic. The term shrew is still used to describe the stock character in fiction and folk storytelling. None of these terms are usually applied to males in Modern English.
This stereotype or cliché was common in early- to mid-20th-century films, and retains some present-day currency, often shifted somewhat toward the virtues of the stock female character of the heroic virago.
Folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand collected over 400 literary and oral version of shrew stories in 30 cultural groups in Europe in the middle 20th century.
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