Ewelina Topolska

Dr Vicente Fores

Shakespeare in performance

26^th November 2007

Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew: character analysis.

Petruchio is the main male character of The Taming of the Shrew, written by William Shakespeare around 1593-94[1], one of the set of seventeen plays by this author belonging to the comedy genre. The drama, controversial as it seems nowadays, when so much stress is put on equality between the genders, has been continuously popular in the theatres for over four centuries.[2] Indubitably the key to the success lies in the attractive, dynamic construction of the main characters of the drama, Petruchio and Katherine Minola, two warriors participating in the eternal battle of sexes[3]. As Ann Thompson puts it, “by most standards, including feminist ones, Petruchio is a more interesting and challenging possibility as a husband than Orlandos and Orsinos of this world, just as Kate is a more interesting wife than Bianca”( Thompson 1995: 41).[4] The relation between Kate and Petruchio constitutes the main plot of the drama, which differs from the secondary plot and other comedies of Shakespeare in that it does not build on misunderstanding and disguise[5]. Still, also here exists an important element of discovering what is supposed to be one’s true identity: Katherine, a wild, uncivil shrew, encounters her becoming femininity thanks to the taming practices of Petruchio; if we like the outcome of this process is a question apart. Since the construction of Petruchio’s character is determined by his position of the tamer, we must analyze this hero with relation to his pupil[6].

The first time we meet Petruchio is in Act I, scene II, when upon entering on the stage he informs us that, being native of Verona, he has come to Padua to visit his friend Hortensio, a character of the secondary plot, suitor to Bianca, Kate’s sister. The very first thing we see Petruchio do is beat his servant Grumio, which does not happen by chance: this fact points out to the character’s propensities towards violence, abruptness and implacability, all of which will come very handy in the task of subduing Kate[7]. At seeing Petruchio’s impatience, Hortensio pledges for Grumio and enquires about the cause of his friend’s visit. The young man explains that his wish is to get experience of the wide world, but foremost it is “happily to wive and thrive as best I may” ( I.2.53)[8]. The factor most influential in the choice of wife is her wealth, which would not astonish the Elizabethan audience for whom marriage was mainly the matter of business, although in the times of Shakespeare a new approach to the question of love between the spouses was being introduced[9]. Still, we cannot be quite sure of the truthfulness of Petruchio’s purely mercenary approach to the matter, as later on he develops certain sympathy for his fiancée and strives for bringing her round to his worldview, instead of leaving her more independent but lonely. Yet, on the other hand, his obstinacy in changing Kate may be treated as a manifestation of his will to demonstrate the strength of male supremacy.

One important detail which may easily escape out attention is that Petruchio, like all the other young male figures in the play, is presented with the relation to his father, which gives him his due position in the patriarchal world. Katherine’s suitor, having inherited notable riches from his father, is not only independent, but also supported in the male- dominated reality by the memory of his father’s excellence and by a male friend and a servant. Katherine, on the contrary, is all alone, having not even one element that would speak in her favour; her only weapon being the “scolding tongue” (I.2.96). The result of the battle is obvious from the very beginning.

It is little recognized by the critics concerned with The Taming of the Shrew that the figure of Petruchio bears significant similarities to the mythical Hercules, the Renaissance cult-hero. This reading is emphasized by Gunnar Sorelius, who points out to Gremio’s comment (I.2.250-251) on the task Petruchio is so willing to undertake:

“Yea, leave this labour to great Hercules,

And let it be more than Alcides’ twelve”.

The very protagonist also perceives in himself certain resemblances to the mythological hero when he says ( I.2. 194-203):

“Have I not in my time heard lions roar?

Have I not heard the sea, puffed up with winds,

Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?

Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,

And heaven’s artillery thunder in the skies?

Have I not in a pitched battle heard

Loud larums, neighing steeds and trumpets’ clang?

And do you tell me of a woman’s tongue,

That gives not half so great a blow to hear

As will a chestnut in a farmer’s fire?”

In this fragment Shakespeare evokes the images of Hercules’ fight against the Nemean lion, the Erimanthian boar and the capture of Troy. It is also important to bear in mind that his ninth labour consisted in subduing the Amazon Hippolyte, which stands as an example of his role as civilizer of the barbaric.[10]

Still, according to Landino ( Sorelius 1993: 81) Hercules is not only “the humanistic hero of the engaged will and civilizing tamer of monstrous excess”. He is also Seneca’s Herculens Furens, who had been to Hell and fed Cerberus there, and who, as relates Euripides, kills in his fury and madness his wife Megara. In Shakespeare’s play we also encounter passages referring to Petruchio’s devilish nature, as in III.2.145 when Gremio opines: “ He’s a devil, a devil, a very fiend”, whereas Katharine expresses a few times doubts about her future husband’s mental capacities. For instance, in II.1.276 she call him “half-lunatic” and in III.2. 8-13, when Petruchio does not show up on the appointed hour of the wedding, she comments:

“No shame but mine. I must, forsooth, be forced

To give my hand, opposed against my heart,

Unto a mad-brain rudesby, full of spleen,

Who wood in haste and means to wed in leisure.

I told you, I, he was a frantic fool,

Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behaviour”.

Although it is important to draw parallelisms between Petruchio and Hercules, mythology being Shakespeare’s customary material out of which to cut metaphors and allusions, we also should focus on the other significant source of inspiration in this play, which is countryside and living amongst nature. There appear elements which are typical of the countryside setting, like bear-hunting accompanied by dogs, falconry or the presence of the tinker Sly, a typical rural bum. Also Katherine is seen by Petruchio in natural terms as a wild animal, a haggard to be tamed, as he explains in his soliloquy at the end of IV.1. :

“My falcon now is sharp and passing empty,

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

For then she never looks upon her lure.

Another way I have to man my haggard,

To make her come and know her keeper’s call,

That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites,

That bate and beat and will not be obedient”.

The motif of subduing a shrewish wife was very popular in the Renaissance literature. However, compared to his predecessors, Petruchio’s methods seem sophisticated, as the usual conduct in these cases was simply the use of physical force[11]. The innovation in the treatment of the topic consist in that Petruchio does not enter the stage smacking a whip, but limits himself to torturing Kate mentally and depriving her of food and sleep. As we read in Hibbar’s “Introduction” to the play ( Shakespeare 1982: 19), “Falcons, which were much prized by the Elizabethans who used them for hunting, were tamed (…) by being denied sleep. The tamer watched the bird continually until it is subdued and eventually gives way in the battle of wills”. If the master succeeded in his purpose, the animal became very attached to him, which is what happens to Katherine.

Still, before getting to Petruchio’s residence, which is where he gives Kate the mentioned falconry training, the young man inflicts on the woman a series of humiliations in order to break her spirit. Although many critics, trying to defend Shakespeare’s image as a playwright of relatively modern and humanist views, prefer to see the events happening between Petruchio and Kate in the terms of game, it is difficult to overlook that from the first meeting Petruchio stands in the position of very enhanced superiority: during the first encounter he declines to go and see the woman, but bids her come to him. Another step is to deny Kate the right to her own opinion and identity: Petruchio supposes[12] from the very beginning Kate will be what he wants her to be, treating her original traits of character and her wishes with all disrespect possible. In II. 1. 166-176 he confesses to the audience:

“Say that she rail, why then I’ll tell her plain

She sings as sweetly as a nightingale.

Say that she frown, I’ll say she looks as clear

As morning roses newly washed with dew.

Say she be mute and will not speak a word,

Then I’ll commend her volubility

And say she uttereth piercy eloquence.

If she do bid me pack, I’ll give her thanks

As though she bid me stay by her a week.

If she deny to wed, I’ll crave the day

When I shall ask the banns and be married”.

And Petruchio carries out his plan very consistently. Kate is put into a totally helpless position: she cannot defend her identity and her opinions against someone who does not recognize their existence. The only solution left to her in order to be recognized as an individual is to give in and assume the identity imposed on her by Petruchio.

Nevertheless, before that happens, the public witnesses a very high-spirited and witty conversation between the two parties, in which the recurring topic is sex and child- bearing. Petruchio seems to perceive his future wife as “a hen” ( II.1.220) that will satisfy his sexual desires and produce offspring. Although one may argue, that Petruchio appreciates Kate’s vigour and stubbornness, to which evidence might be found in his comment upon learning that the girl broke Hortensio’s lute on the teacher’s head, still this thesis collapses when we realize that Kate’s waspishness is exactly what Petruchio endeavours, and achieves to, destroy, converting his bride in a “household Kate” ( II.1.265).

In order to force Kate to obedience, the young man from Verona adapts a certain kind of disguise: not material, but psychical one, appearing to his future wife not exactly what he is.[13] On this point the play shows certain parallelism to another drama Shakespeare created about the same time as The Taming, namely Richard III. Both protagonists “adopt roles in order to achieve their ends, both take a delight in doing so, and both inform the audience by direct address what their plans and purposes are”( Shakespeare 1982:21). Petruchio’s performance within performance within performance[14] commences on the wedding day, when he arrives at Baptista’s house not only much late, but wearing a beggar’s apparel and riding a rickety, sick jade. This behaviour of her future husband causes Katherine to lament bitterly; Tranio, trying to console her and her father, gives a laudatory speech on Petruchio ( III.2.21-25):

“Patience, good Katherine, and Baptista too.

Upon my life, Petruchio means but well,

Whatever fortune stays him from his word.

Though he be blunt, I know him passing wise;

Though he be marry, yet withal he’s honest.”

The eulogy, although essentially true, does not have a comforting effect on Kate, just as it seems little convincing to the audience: Tranio met Petruchio only in Padua, so there is a blatant inconsistency in his report, and it is expressed only to help his master in achieving their own goal.

When Petruchio finally arrives, he refuses to change, insisting that he does not care about appearances, and in order to make the humiliation imposed on Kate even more acute, he stirs up a scandal in the church, swearing, abusing gravely the vicar and kissing his bride in a very spectacular manner. Further on, he denies Katherine the pleasure of presiding over her wedding feast and immediately from the church makes her mount the horse and set off to his hometown.

After a tiresome journey, dirty due to an accident in which Kate fell into mud, and cold, the couple finally arrives at their destination, where they are welcomed by the houses’ service with a dinner. However, Petruchio invents a fault with the meal, and under the pretext of taking exceptional care of his wife’s comfort, he throws the food and dishes at the servants. Kate, starving, tries to convince her husband to abandon the violent way of conduct and behave reasonably; still, cunning Petruchio does not concede, continuing his performance by denying the girl, again allegedly for the sake of her good, sleep, and decent attire; as he explains to his wife ( IV.3. 164-165):

“Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor,

For ‘tis the mind that makes the body rich”.

Amongst these hardships, Kate not only becomes tamed, but learns to beg and pray; the physical and mental tortures make her renounce not only her own will , but common reason, when on the way back to Padua she confirms Petruchio’s absurd statements about the sun being the moon and vice versa ( IV.5. 1-15). Many commentators try to defend Kate’s dignity[15] by pointing out to the scene in which Kate and Petruchio meet Vicentio, and the heroine joins in the senseless conversation initiated by Petruchio, who claims that Vicentio is a fresh, fair maiden. Nevertheless, participating in the game launched by Petruchio seems a feeble proof of the girl’s high-spiritedness and well- being, especially compared to her previous liberty, inventiveness and eloquence.

Although already in the act IV we can see Kate totally submissive, the heyday of Petruchio’s triumph comes in V.2, when the three gentleman, Petruchio, Lucentio and Hortensio make a bet which of the wives will come to them obediently when called. Only Katherine, as the best trained dog[16], comes immediately when called by her master; on top of that, she delivers a speech about the duties of a wife, which falls exactly in line with the proclamations of the Elizabethan Church’s Book of Homilies:“woman is by nature and by divine ordinance inferior to man, and that the wife is therefore subject to her husband” (Shakespeare 1982: 16). Nowadays the play is acceptable onstage only if the final monologue of the heroine is delivered in an ironic way[17]; still, this is a relatively modern approach. It seems unreasonable to think that in the Elizabethan society Katherine’s words should not be taken as a real sermon on the right conduct of the 16^th century wives.

Katherine is gratified for her speech with sex: only when Petruchio pronounces words “Come, Kate, we’ll to bed” the audience realizes fully, that till that moment the marriage had not been consummated, which was yet another severe, humiliating deprivation imposed on Kate by her lord. The possible interpretation of this fact is that Petruchio does not fully acknowledge Kate as her wife ( and manifests it by refusing to have sex with her) until she forswears explicitly and publicly her freedom and pronounces herself a slave, an object in the hands of his spouse. Thus, despite some more optimistic readings, as offered by Novy or Hibbard, we cannot avoid the conclusion that Petruchio is a tyrant, who, making the most of his natural position of superiority granted to him by a deeply patriarchal society, by unfair, trickery and cruel methods, like Machiavelli’s prince, forces his wife into total submission and abandoning of her original identity. It would be much more pleasant to think of Kate’s metamorphosis as the result of the ameliorating power of love. However, it is difficult to find a stable ground for this hypothesis, as Petruchio not even once in a play expresses truly warm affection for his wife, calling her “sweet” only when she obeys his commands (V.1.124); just on the contrary, he refers to her frequently as to an animal which needs training. Kate calls her spouse “love” just once ( V.1.123), but bearing in mind Petruchio’s previous conduct we would need to believe Kate to be a very ardent masochist to develop love for her torturer. It is more reasonable to assume that the more affectionate treatment of her spouse comes as a logical consequence of the role she was forced to accept. Thus, maintaining a more sceptical position, we can admit that Petruchio is indeed a very dexterous tamer, but, on the other hand, nothing more but a tamer.

Works cited:

1. Evans B., 1967: Shakespeare’s Comedies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2. Novy M. L., 1984: Love’s Argument. Gender Relations in Shakespeare. Chapel Hill and London: The University of North California Press.

3. Parrot T.M., 1949: Shakespearean Comedy. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

4. Sorelius G., 1993: Shakespeare’s Early Comedies. Myth, Metamorphosis, Mannerism. Sweden: Uppsala.

5. Shakespeare W., 1982: The Taming of the Shrew, ed. Hibbard G.R., Harmondworth: Penguin Books.

6. Shakespeare W., 2002: The Taming of the Shrew, ed. Schafer E., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

7. Shakespeare W., 1995: The Taming of the Shrew, ed. Thompson A., Cambridge :Cambridge University Press.

8. Heilman R.B., 2002: “The Taming Untamed, or The Returned of The Shrew”, http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=K3fhDlRxFvQC&oi=fnd&pg=PA45&dq=the+taming+of+the+shrew&ots=ldKlJCoILg&sig=7RCp_8T21AbTd91AOR0vFhGZB30#PPA42,M1, last viewed 2007-11-26

9. The chronology of Shakespeare’s plays:

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/keydates/playchron.html , last viewed 2007-11-26

9. Twelve labours of Hercules: http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/twelvelabors/f/HerculesLabors.htm , last viewed 2007-11-26

[2] See: Schafer’s “Introduction” in Shakespeare 2002:1.

[4] Orlando: a character in As You Like It; Orsino: a character in Twelfth Night; Bianca: Katherine’s sister.

[5] “No participant stands in a position of unawareness, none has a fuller view of the situation than another, and we ourselves [as audience or readers] occupy a vantage point equal to that of actors.” ( Evans 1967: 25).

[6] One of the modes employed to attenuate Petruchio’s role of a tamer is depicting him as an educator. See: Sorelius 1993: 85-89.

[7] Grumio in I.2.103-110 suggests that Petruchio may go so far as to use rape, “eye” being a euphemism for the vagina.

[8] This paper is based on Ann Thompson’s edition, Cambridge University Press 1995.

[9] Shakespeare alludes to the budding changes when he lets Baptista answer to Petruchio’s inquiry about Kate’s hand in II.1. 124-125: “Ay, when the special thing is well obtained, that is, her love, for that is all in all”.

[11] “In the old play Tom Taylor and His Wife (c. 1560) the domineering wife is given a thorough drubbing by her husband’s friend Tom Tayler disguised as her husband. An even more cruel beating is meted out to a provocative wife by her long suffering husband in The Ballad of the Curst Wife Wrapt in a Morell’s Skin (c. 1550). “ ( Shakespeare 1982: 18).

[12] One of the sources Shakespeare constructed his comedy upon was Gascoigne’s I Suppositi. The characters of the secondary plot, plagiarised from Giasconi’s, are supposed to be what they are not, but at the end their true identities are re-established. On the contrary, Katherine loses her original identity to become what Petruchio supposes her to be.

[13] And this fact contradicts Evans’ thesis that everybody participating in the main plot stands on equal positions.

[14] One level of performance is established between the audiance and the actors; another between Sly and his company appearing in the Induction and the proper protagonists of the play. Yet another level between Petruchio and Kate and her surrounding).

[16]As Thompson repeats after Oliver, “ Petruchio’s order to Kate to bring out the other wives is like having a trained dog retrieve a stick.” ( Shakespeare 1995: 26).