The Taming of the Shrew

The primary external conflicts in The Taming of the Shrew occur between Katherine and Petruchio, Katherine and Bianca, Katherine and her father, and, to an extent, Lucentio and Baptista. Katherine...

In addition to the other very good answer to this question, it helps to think of Katharina as something of a "proto-feminist" character. Katharina, for example, is often a character who appears to...

This quote is directed to Lucentio who has disguised himself as “Cambio,” a teacher of Latin, in order to woo Bianca. The irony is that he is now in the best position to woo Bianca as he will be...

Considering how little we know of Shakespeare as an individual, it is impossible to definitively determine what his purpose was in writing The Taming of the Shrew. Seeing as it is a comedy, one of...

Puns are a form of humorous word play where the individual uses a word which has different meanings to create humor by using one of the meanings of the word in the phrase. The first few...

The main problem is the conflict between Kate and Petruchio. Petruchio sets out to "tame" Kate who, prior to his arrival, flames every potential suitor to come near her. The question of...

It is difficult for modern Americans to understand the institution of marriage in Elizabethan times. First, Americans are romantic when it comes to love. We believe couples are fated to meet: a...

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) wrote the Elizabethan comedy The Taming of the Shrew in the late sixteenth century. To begin any analysis of the play, the reader must examine the plot within the...

In Act Three, scene two, of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, I believe that Petruchio arrives to his wedding in old clothes for several reasons, all of which center around Kate and her...

Looks to me like the language of hyperbole--exaggeration used for effect. Each of the three characters here uses exaggeration to make or emphasize their points. Kate has literally bound her sister...

I wonder if you mean similes rather than metaphors? The two are easily confused. I have checked the section that you refer to and cannot find any metaphors, but there are two obvious similes. Let...

Petruchio certainly tries to charm Baptista during his first meeting at the beginning of Act 2, using the overtly flattering language to describe Katherine. Of course, Baptista is not entirely...

The Induction with Christopher Sly is in fact the only "Induction" of its type in all of Shakespeare's works. The Induction shows Sly, a beggar, falling asleep. He is tricked by some...

When Situational Irony occurs in theater the audience is expecting the play to progress in one direction, when in fact the story or the situation takes an unexpected turn. Situational Irony deals...

Mousey is correct in suggesting that part of the purpose of the Induction in The Taming of the Shrew is to set a humorous tone. There is a bit more that can be found in the Induction, however, if...

We have to keep in mind that the Taming of the Shrew is a play within a play, meaning that Shakespeare is going to pains to actually show us the unreality of a man actually being able to...

In Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, in Act Three, scene two, Kate still believes that if she has a strong enough will, she will get what she wants. She thinks that only a woman who lack...

I'm not sure that Baptista can be characterized as a poor father, but he isn't perfect either. He does his best to find good husbands for both his daughters, trying to insure that each of them will...

As Hortensio watches Lucentio woo Bianca (with some biased reinforcement from Tranio)—in Act Four, scene two, of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew—the man pretending to be a music teacher to...

The wily servant Tranio—disguised as his master Lucentio—needs to find someone who can masquerade as Lucentio's father, Vincentio. This is all part of his elaborate, convoluted plan to negotiate...

This line is delivered from Petruchio to Kate at Kate's house. Petruchio is claiming that Kate has won his love because she loved him so much and that she declared her love through oaths and...

Grumio, Petruchio's manservant, is the first servant to appear, and his characterisation is in line with the traditional comic master-servant relationship. Grumio fails to understand (or, perhaps,...

The play doesn't actually tell us how old Katharina is: though we know for certain that she's older than Bianca. She's been played as everything from a young woman (aged around 25) right the way...

This question is a little tricky; because Grumio's comments are sarcastic, we have to know that Gremio is old in order to recognize Grumio's criticism and puns. Other things point to Gremio's age;...

The first answer you've received covers much of what I would say; however, in the movie, Kate is the victim of a bet--pure and simple. She is "shrewish" because she's been burned before and when...

I took a slightly different reading of your question and laughed, yet again, at the possibility that it is Petruchio that has been tamed and not Katherina at all. I agree that Katherina absolutely...

Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, a play within a play, is about a man who wants to control his woman, when his woman has completely different ideas about the arrangement. Shakespeare's...

In Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, we see humorous misunderstanding and slapstick in Act II, scene i. Petruchio has been encouraged to woo and wed Katharina, the shrew in the story. He is...

William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew is a boisterous comedy that uses broad farce to satirize courtship and marriage. The play's plot turns around the antics of various suitors to win the...

Katherine demands that her younger sister Bianca reveal “Whom thou lovest best.” Katherine insists that she tell the truth and declares that Hortensio is Bianca’s choice. (Hortensio is a close...

I agree with other editors in pointing out that the learning process is not all one-way. It is clear that Kate and Petruchio have found their equal in the other, and that at the end of the play we...

In The Taming of the Shrew, Katherine is the shrew who needs taming. The question is why she behaves the way she does. My contention is that she sees this kind of outlandish behavior as the only...

Just to take a simpler route to answer this question all in good fun, I would say that Bianca isn't a shrew at the beginning but becomes one in the end because she is a dynamic character and was...

In William Shakespeare's comedy The Taming of the Shrew, Hortensio is Petruchio's best friend and sidekick. Like almost every other man in Padua, Hortensio adores the gorgeous Bianca and fantasizes...

Not at all. The Taming of the Shrew is about relationships--not just Kate and Petruchio's, but also others. Through Kate's resistance, and Petruchio's wild demands, we see our own battles in our...

This quote is heavily ironic because it is Katharina that utters these lines expressing her desire to do anything to make her husband happy. This quote comes in a long speech of Katharina's that...

The theme of appearance vs. reality seems to be an omnipresent theme in many of Shakespeare's comedies, and this excellent play is no exception. Of course, in this scene, Act III scene 2, the...

1. In the play's first scene, Christopher Sly, who has passed out from drinking, is tricked into believing that he is actually a nobleman, thus initiating the theme of the disconnect between...

Well, Petruchio's tactic, here as elsewhere, is to divorce his words from the real action of the play, just as he does to Kate in the taming scene. Here's his opening line: PET: Pray, have you not...

You mention certain line numbers in your question, but it would help in future question-asking for you to know that there are different editions of all of Shakespeare's plays, each one edited...

A pun, or a play on words, is where one word is deliberately taken to mean something else and a comic effect is produced as a result. We can see a pun at work in the conversation, or barrage of...

Interestingly, the way that the relationship between master and servant is presented is somewhat reversed from what we would perhaps expect it to be. The central master-servant relationship in the...

The title of this play really says it all -- it says exactly what the play is about. It says that the play will be all about how a "shrew" -- an angry, somewhat uppity woman -- gets tamed and put...

How about this one? Kate addresses the crowd of wedding guests as she is waiting with them for Petruchio who is intentionally late for their wedding."No shame but mine. I must, forsooth, be...

When Petruchio and Katherine encounter the traveling Vincentio (Act IV, Scene 5), Petruchio refers to the elderly man as a "gentlewoman" (l. 33) and asks his wife to greet the "fair lovely maid"...

Bianca is beautiful and sought after by many suitors. Probably because of that she has learned to be fairly manipulative with men--including her own father. Clearly she's more than the simpering...

It is Tranio, let us remember, that seems to try and bring his master down to earth after he has fallen so violently in love with Bianca at first sight. Shakespeare shows that Tranio is more than...

In Shakespeare's play The Taming of the Shrew, some similarities may be found by comparing it to The Arabian Nights (also known as The Thousand and One Nights). In Shakespeare's play, Petruchio is...

The bet that Petruchio makes with his friends comes in the final scene of the play, Act V scene 2, and seems to be organised by him to demonstrate his final mastery of Katharina, his wife, and his...

Good question! Christopher Sly is a commoner, unpolished and drunk to say the least. The Lord and the hunting party that come upon him are more polished, educated, and come from noble blood. In...