The Taming of the Shrew: Characters (OCR A Level English Literature): Revision Note

Characters

It is useful to consider each character as representing a function in the play. Understanding Shakespeare’s purpose for each character will help produce sophisticated analysis. Interpreting the play’s ideas by considering how each character may represent an idea or a sub-group in society, and how characters oppose each other or react to each other, is crucial.

Below you will find character profiles of:

• Baptista Minola

• Katherina

• Bianca

• Petruchio

Other characters:

• Lucentio

• Christopher Sly

• Gremio

• Hortensio

It is worth noting that editions of the play vary. Spellings of characters’ names can vary between editions, for example Petruchio/Petruccio, and Act 3 is sometimes split into three scenes rather than two.

Baptista Minola

• Baptista Minola is a wealthy man in Padua, and father to daughters Katherina and Bianca:

  • His role in the play focuses on his duty to find suitable and advantageous matches for his daughters

• Baptista exemplifies patriarchal expectations in Renaissance Italy:

  • Although his youngest daughter Bianca has many suitors, Baptista will not allow her to marry until Katherina, the eldest daughter, has a husband

  • His protectiveness over his youngest daughter is predominantly to ensure he finds her a wealthy and worthy suitor, thus securing financial stability

  • This is illustrated when he repeatedly insists Bianca “go in” while he discusses her courtship with male suitors 

• Baptista’s attitude towards Katherina comedically presents ideas about gender norms:

  • His anxiety that he may not find Katherina a husband due to her disobedience and temper is hyperbolised: he describes her as “my grief” 

  • When Petruchio asks him if he has a “daughter / Called Katherina, fair and virtuous”, Baptista comically replies “I have a daughter, sir, called Katherina”

• Baptista’s sympathetic portrayal serves to illustrate the pressure on higher-class fathers:

  • His rhetorical question “Was ever gentleman thus grieved as I?” presents him as an aggrieved father

• Renaissance customs are illustrated by Baptista’s views on marriage as a financial transaction:

  • Regarding marrying Katherina to Petruchio, he describes himself as playing “a merchant’s part” and making a “desperate mart” (bargain)

  • It is made clear that suitors, such as Lucentio, must prove their status and wealth to win Bianca’s hand

  • This underscores how patriarchal values limit female autonomy and put pressure on wealthy fathers

Katherina

• Katherina can be considered the protagonist of the play: she is the “shrew” that needs to be tamed:

  • Her character challenges gender norms and expectations, as she is not interested in marriage and is described as rough and “ill-tempered”

  • As Baptista’s eldest daughter, she is characterised as his “grief” as a result of his desire to marry her off before Bianca can marry

• Her characterisation creates comedy, as she appears to frighten most of the male characters in the play, bar Petruchio who is not afraid of a “woman’s tongue”:

  • Katherina’s sharp wit and aggressive behaviour grieves her father and puts off possible suitors 

  • Gremio calls her a “wildcat” and says she is too “rough”, Hortensio refers to her as a devil, and Tranio wonders if she is “stark mad”

• Typical of Shakespeare’s strong female characters, she is presented as intelligent: 

  • In a battle of wits with Petruchio, she is equally matched

• Via his presentation of Katherina, Shakespeare raises questions about female autonomy within Renaissance marital customs:

  • While Katherina makes it clear she is not interested in marriage she is, ultimately, married against her will: “forced” against her “heart”

• Shakespeare satirises male attitudes to females in Renaissance Italy when Katherina is humiliated and mistreated by her husband Petruchio

• However, Shakespeare’s presentation of Katherina as a clever woman complicates the plot: she appears to learn that she must submit to Petruchio in order to be treated well:

  • Her monologue at the end of the play portrays her subservient obedience to Petruchio, confusing other characters as well as the audience

  • Her sudden transformation may be an ironic display of gender roles, or it may be that Katherina has learned to survive in a male-dominated world

  • In contrast, Katherina may have met her match with Petruchio and, thus, her temper and animosity are quelled

  • The many interpretations of this monologue suggest, certainly, that Shakespeare aimed for ambiguity to provoke audiences to question gender roles

• Furthermore, Katherina advocates for female consideration of a husband’s role:

  • She says men endure “painful labour both by sea and land” who “watch the night in storms, the day in cold” while wives “liest warm at home, secure and safe”

  • Shakespeare therefore suggests a more nuanced understanding of gender roles

  • Simultaneously, Katherina’s dialogue reflects Renaissance attitudes to marriage as key to maintaining social order

Bianca

• In Act 1, Scene 1, Shakespeare uses Bianca to illustrate patriarchal gender ideals:

  • Bianca’s characterisation as meek and gentle makes her attractive to multiple suitors such as Hortensio, Gremio and Lucentio

• Shakespeare highlights gender expectations in his depiction of Bianca’s interest in ideal female pursuits: she shows a “delight / In music, instruments, and poetry” 

• Lucentio’s comparison of Bianca to Katherina highlights Renaissance attitudes to outspoken women:

  • He remarks on her quiet nature: “But in the other’s silence do I see / Maid’s mild behaviour and sobriety”

• Bianca’s character, perhaps more so than Katherina, presents an ironic portrayal of gender roles: she deceives her suitors and her father:

  • While she presents as obedient to male characters she, in fact, disregards her father’s wishes and marries Lucentio in secret

  • Further, she is offered a lesson in servitude by Katherina in the play’s denouement

• By the play's end, Bianca and Katherina's roles are reversed:

  • Bianca uses bawdy language and innuendo: "Head and butt? An hasty-witted body / Would say your head and butt were head and horn"

  • She suggests Lucentio is a fool for attempting to test her duty to him, and Petruchio describes her as a "headstrong" woman

Petruchio

• Petruchio can be interpreted as the play’s comic villain:

  • He denigrates Renaissance customs related to courtly love

  • Initially, he appears interested only in finding a wealthy wife

  • His courtship of Katherina is littered with bawdy innuendo: “For I will board her though she chide as loud / As thunder when the clouds in autumn crack”

• Petruchio exemplifies masculine ideals, boasting about his strength and prowess:

  • He explains he has “heard lions roar” and is not frightened by a woman’s “din”

  • He uses military imagery to describe fighting a sea that raged “like an angry boar chafed with sweat” and hearing “heaven’s artillery thunder in the skies” 

• The performance Petruchio puts on to confuse Katherina is comedic:

  • He equally insults and flatters her, calling her “Good Kate” to provoke or charm 

  • He suggests she is “gentle” and not as bad-tempered as others have suggested to bewilder her and show off his strong will

  • Yet his love for Katherina appears genuine at times

  • In Act 3, Scene 2, he says to Baptista, “But what a fool am I to chat with you / When I should bid good morrow to my bride”

• Petruchio’s complex characterisation challenges attitudes to social class and gender:

  • He is contrary and indifferent to others’ opinions 

  • His battle of wits with Katherina suggests he is aroused by her intelligence while other male characters avoid her

  • While his overarching aim may be to humiliate Katherina, Petruchio mocks, too, the institution of marriage and the hierarchical social class system

• Petruchio satirises the sanctity of Renaissance marriage and status:

  • His cruelty to upper-class Katherina and his servants is hyperbolic: he shows disdain for both upper and lower class characters

Other characters

Lucentio

• A scholar from Pisa, he can be interpreted as a foil to Petruchio in that he is well-mannered and respectful

• His hyperbolic expression of love for Bianca is typical of courtly love: “Tranio, I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio, / If I achieve not this young modest girl”:

  • Even Tranio, his loyal servant, questions this to comedic effect: “I pray, sir, tell me: is it possible / That love should of a sudden take such hold?”

• Lucentio’s function in the play is to reflect the complexity of patriarchal courtship rituals:

  • Unable to marry Bianca without proving himself, he must impersonate a tutor (Cambio) to win her over

  • Moreover, he employs a passing pedant to impersonate his father Vincentio to persuade Baptista of his lineage and wealth

• While he is not punished for his deceit towards Baptista, he does find himself, by the denouement, in a marriage that is not as he had expected:

  • His wife Bianca is not as gentle or subservient as he had hoped

Christopher Sly

• Christopher Sly, a lower-class comedic character, appears in the induction

• His function is to set up two key themes: disguise and identity: 

  • As a drunken tinker, he is humiliated by a passing lord and huntsman who trick him into believing he may be of noble birth

  • While he sleeps he is dressed as a lord and made to converse with a pageboy dressed as a lady, his wife

• The fact that he is told he may have gone mad and that he has forgotten his real identity is, perhaps, a nod to the play proper’s protagonist Katherina:

  • She, too, is humiliated and tricked into taking on a different identity

• Certainly, Sly represents power imbalances between the higher and lower classes

• He serves, too, to present the play proper as a farcical fantasy, rather than reality:

  • A group of actors arrive at the Lord’s house to perform a play (The Taming of the Shrew) which Sly watches 

Gremio

• Gremio’s character can be considered a stock comedic archetype, characterised as an elderly and wealthy man who wishes to wed a young bride

• Gremio serves to represent the competitive nature of marriage in Renaissance Italy, particularly among the upper classes:

  • Gremio is an elderly, wealthy suitor of Bianca, competing with Lucentio and Hortensio

• Through Gremio, Shakespeare reflects the way Renaissance Italy views marriage as a financial contract:

  • Gremio and Tranio bargain over Bianca

  • He attempts to persuade Baptista with a list of luxuries, beginning with a house “richly furnished with plate and gold” which he says Bianca will own when he dies

• Further, Gremio is representative of the wisdom of age:

  • He appears to be one of the only characters who remarks on the power imbalance within Katherina and Petruchio’s marriage

  • He considers Petruchio to be a “devil”, while Katherina, in comparison, is a vulnerable “lamb” 

Hortensio

• Hortensio is another of Bianca’s suitors: he creates comedy by complicating the love dilemma:

  • He, like Lucentio, disguises himself as a tutor (Licio) to get close to Bianca

  • His woeful attempts to win over Bianca and deal with Katherina are comedic

  • However, when he realises Lucentio is more likely to win her, he relents and marries a widow

• Hortensio reflects typical male attitudes towards women:

  • He tells Katherina she will not find a husband unless she “were of gentler, milder mould”

  • In Hortensio’s final couplet of the play, at the banquet in Padua in Act 5, Scene 2, he remarks on Petruchio’s ability to subdue her “thou hast tamed a curst shrew”

Sources

• Shakespeare, W. (1998) The Taming of the Shrew, Oxford Complete Works [SME Digital Texts Library edition]

• Shakespeare, W. (1951) The Taming of the Shrew, in P. Alexander (ed.) The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Alexander Text. London: Collins [edition printed in OCR exam papers]