Unknit That Threat'ning Unkind Brow

The Taming of Petruchio

This month, we’ll be looking into the comedies of William Shakespeare. His tragedies see the lion’s share of attention, so we chose this genre in the hope of bringing something new to your attention. We hope you enjoy this month’s posts; please be sure to like, share, and let us know what you think in the comments.

“My falcon now is sharp and passing empty,

And till she stoop, she must not be full-gorged.”

-The Taming of the Shrew, Act IV, Scene 1

In The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare presents us with a transformation that is quite enigmatic to the modern mind. While much of the Shakespearean canon is remarkably approachable from a modern perspective, The Taming of the Shrew is primarily concerned with a topic which we as moderns often struggle with, specifically the natural differences between the sexes. In this play, at least on the surface, we watch as Katarina, the harsh, and even occasionally violent, elder daughter of Baptista, transforms into a gentlewoman at the hand of her suitor Petruchio’s severe and perhaps dehumanizing training; and she concludes the play with a meek yet awe-inspiring monologue regarding the appropriate relationship of a wife to her husband. To the modern reader, it seems dishonest or farcical to present such a transformation. To us, it looks like a strong independent woman, bossed around into submission by a domineering overbearing tyrant of a husband who professes to train her like a falcon, finally gives in, but only outwardly. A common understanding of her closing monologue is that she is mocking meekness, giving a wink to the women in the audience, and a topping it off with a flourish and a bow. I think there is a better interpretation than this besides the one which justifies the behavior of Petruchio by pointing to the good ends it supposedly brought about.

            A close reading of Katharina’s final monologue reveals that her position on the proper spousal relationship is not simply what Petruchio tried to train her to accept. If it were a mockery, as many people suggest, it would not contain many of the insights that it does, and would be more of a caricature of the purported male chauvinism of Petruchio. Instead, her monologue contains phrases such as “a woman moved is like a fountain troubled, / muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;” and “why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth…/ but that our soft conditions and our hearts / should well agree with our external parts.” I propose that we ought to interpret the whole of the monologue as sincere, but still not credit Petruchio with this transformation, for Katharina goes beyond the point to which Petruchio could possibly lead her. Thematically, at the start of the play, both the worst aspects of masculine and feminine are on display. Petruchio is an overbearing slob whose only interest in Katharina is for her father’s money. Katharina is emotional, vengeful, and jealous to the point of attacking her own sister, Bianca, for her popularity with suitors. The union of these two characters begins as one would expect, and this is the source of much of the comedic value of the play.

Their relationship becomes more fraught as Petruchio’s tyranny comes to bear, first on Katharina’s food and clothes, and building to its peak in act IV scene 5, where he commands Katharina to call the sun the moon, and an old man a “fair lovely maid.” Then out of this complete tyranny of body and mind, Katharina seems to rise up anew. Her vengeful and jealous emotions had been put down by the tyrannical discipline imposed by Petruchio on her and all those around him. And in place of these negative emotions, we see Katharina spark an empathy for the others who are subject to that tyranny. On a thematic level, this is to show 1) how masculine strength can override the improper emotions of the feminine, albeit through tyranny in some cases, and 2) that it is often in response to such dire circumstances that the truly feminine spirit springs forward to ease the suffering. But it is important to note that the exercise of masculine strength is not to be credited with this second change! All that Petruchio accomplished that comes through in Katharina’s final speech was show her that her “lances are but straws.” There is so much more that comes out of the feminine genius when that realization is made and the lances put down, and this is especially the case when there is the security of marriage; however, and this is a major point of the play in my view, these positive transformations are, again, not to the credit of the masculine, which only provides the initial force to put down the negative aspects of femininity which would otherwise strangle the positive ones.

Perhaps this kind of relationship still sounds unfair to the woman. But let’s consider the alternative arrangement. The contrast to Petruchio and Katharina is shown in the parallel story of Katharina’s sister Bianca and her many suitors, who pine after her in juvenile, emasculating schemes. In contrast to Petruchio’s over-the-top forwardness, these men sneak around the father, Baptista, disguised as tutors, and even take the names of their servants to avoid detection. Weak men, boys rather, such as these are easily manipulated; they lack the qualities of manliness that Petruchio possesses to the point of a fault, and so they never have to endure hardships like those of Petruchio and Katharina’s early relationship, but they never reap the benefits thereof. And so, their relationships are not those of two becoming one, for such relationships require sacrifice of both, and Bianca was never made to sacrifice anything at all; instead, the marriages of these weak men in the end are those of two distinct wills locked forever in that all too familiar conflict in which the rules of engagement are always up for debate, yet never spoken of.

Now this is where the play is open to vast interpretive differences by the director: the reaction of Petruchio to this final speech. The words on the page don’t help us much, unfortunately. But the proper effect of such an eloquent display of the feminine role should be the civilizing of the masculine. The proper response by Petruchio to Katharina’s placement of her hand at his foot in obedient service of him is one of awe, a look of wonder at this new woman who he does not deserve, accompanied by that famous line, “kiss me, Kate”.

Finally, it is significant that Petruchio has the most lines of any character in the play. I think the significance is that, while Katharina’s character is in a sense the title role, Petruchio’s prominence in dialog shows that he is the main character. And so, the title of the play has a double meaning: yes, Katharina is in a sense “tamed” by the crucible of Petruchio’s tyranny, but, unless Shakespeare left his main character without a character arc, there must be a turn in the last scene, namely that Katharina’s speech actually tames Petruchio. Understood in this way, the last scene shows that, while the unrefined and dangerous aspects of masculinity can bring out the best of femininity by enforcing discipline on the worse aspects of it, those best elements of femininity in turn bring out the best of masculinity. In other words, the main insight of this play is that a strong man can make an erratic woman behave as a gentlewoman, and that behavior, or better yet the recasting of her personality to actually become a gentlewoman, in turn invites that strong man to become a gentleman.