Character Analysis (OCR A-Level English Literature): Revision Notes
Character analysis
Understanding the characters in The Taming of the Shrew is essential for grasping how Shakespeare explores themes of gender, power, performance and marriage. Each character embodies different aspects of these themes, and examining their development throughout the play helps reveal the text's complex social commentary. This note focuses on the main characters and their thematic significance, supported by key textual references.
Katherine (Kate)
Initial characterisation
Katherine starts the play as a fierce, outspoken woman who challenges societal expectations. She is verbally sharp and physically aggressive, which earns her the label of "shrew" that others fear and mock. Her behaviour represents active resistance to the patriarchal structures that constrain her. Society describes her as "rough" and "forward", terms that reveal how women who refuse to conform are immediately categorised as problematic.
Katherine's anger stems from a painful position within her family and society. She is unwanted, constantly overshadowed by her younger sister Bianca, and trapped in a world that values her only as a commodity for marriage. Her resistance is not random aggression but a response to being treated as less valuable than her supposedly more obedient sister.
Transformation and ambiguity
As the play progresses, Katherine moves from open defiance to what appears to be acceptance of the role of obedient wife. However, the sincerity of this transformation remains one of the play's central debates. Her lengthy final speech about wifely obedience can be interpreted in two opposing ways.
Two interpretations of Katherine's transformation:
One reading suggests genuine submission, where Katherine has internalised the values Petruchio has forced upon her. The alternative interpretation views her speech as ironic and exaggerated performance. In this reading, Katherine "out-performs" the ideal wife so dramatically that she exposes how artificial and constructed this role actually is. By taking obedience to an extreme, she may be revealing the absurdity of such complete submission.
Key textual evidence
Textual Evidence: Katherine's Final Speech
In her controversial final speech, Katherine urges wives to place their hands "below their husbands' feet". This shocking image crystallises the theme of female submissiveness and marital hierarchy that runs throughout the play. The extremity of this imagery invites audiences to question whether anyone could genuinely believe in such complete subordination, or whether Katherine is deliberately performing an exaggerated version of obedience.
Petruchio
Character and methods
Petruchio makes no secret of his intentions when he arrives in Padua: he wants a wealthy wife and claims not to care about her temperament. This openness highlights how marriage functions as an economic transaction in the play's world. He embodies a particular kind of aggressive, performative masculinity, being loud, theatrical and utterly determined to "tame" Katherine.
Petruchio's "Taming" Methods
His methods involve manipulation, sleep deprivation, food deprivation and constant verbal challenges. Petruchio creates what the play calls a "taming school", transforming marriage into a training ground. This approach raises disturbing questions about where the boundary lies between discipline, education and psychological abuse.
Thematic significance
Through Petruchio, Shakespeare explores whether male dominance can somehow transform into a more equal, companionate marriage, or whether the play ultimately endorses cruelty. Petruchio treats the taming as both a practical project and a theatrical performance, suggesting that gender roles and power dynamics are constructed rather than natural.
Key textual evidence
Textual Evidence: Petruchio's Boasts and the Wager
Petruchio boasts that he knows "how to tame a shrew", inviting the audience to judge his methods throughout the play. At the end, he wins a wager proving Kate will be more obedient than the other wives, treating marriage as a competition between men and a test of masculine control over women. This final scene reduces marriage to a performance and contest, stripping away any romantic pretensions.
Bianca
The "ideal" daughter
At first, Bianca appears to embody the ideal Renaissance daughter: modest, quiet and obedient. These qualities make her highly desirable to multiple suitors and earn her father's favour. She functions as Katherine's foil, meaning her character directly contrasts with Kate's to highlight particular qualities. Where Kate is loud and resistant, Bianca seems compliant and sweet.
This contrast exposes how social value is tied directly to submissive femininity. Bianca's desirability comes not from her individual qualities but from her apparent conformity to expectations for women. Early in the play, she demonstrates this by pledging to obey her father and accept his will regarding her marriage, reinforcing her image as the "good" daughter.
Performance and manipulation
However, Bianca's behaviour reveals that her obedience is also a kind of strategic performance. She flirts with her suitors, manipulates situations to her advantage and uses her "good girl" reputation to gain what she wants. This complexity challenges the binary view of women as either shrews or angels, suggesting that conformity itself can be a calculated role rather than genuine inner virtue.
Key textual evidence
Textual Evidence: The Final Wager Scene
The most telling moment comes in the final wager scene when Bianca refuses to come when Lucentio calls her. This refusal undercuts the myth of her perfect obedience and reveals that her earlier compliance was selective and strategic. The supposedly "tamed" Kate proves more obedient than the naturally "good" Bianca, creating an ironic reversal.
Lucentio
Romantic idealism
Lucentio begins as a romantic young scholar who falls instantly in love with Bianca at first sight. He represents idealised love and the conventions of romantic comedy. To win Bianca, he adopts an elaborate disguise, posing as a tutor while his servant impersonates him. Early in the play, he speaks of "devoting" himself to serious study in Padua, but he abandons this vow as soon as he sees Bianca, showing how quickly romantic love overturns his stated purpose.
This use of disguise connects Lucentio to the play's broader theme of role-playing and social masks. His romantic pursuit, though presented as more noble than Petruchio's, is also entangled with deception, social status and parental authority.
Reality versus fantasy
Lucentio's storyline demonstrates how conventional romantic pursuit involves its own forms of manipulation and control. By the play's end, his idealisation of Bianca crashes into reality when she refuses to obey him. This moment exposes the gap between romantic fantasy and the reality of married life. In the final scene, Lucentio is embarrassed when Bianca does not come when called, revealing how his expectations of control differ sharply from reality.
Baptista Minola
Patriarchal power
Baptista functions as the patriarch who controls his daughters' futures. He determines that Katherine must marry before Bianca can, treating both daughters as assets to be advantageously placed rather than individuals with desires. He embodies both patriarchal and economic power, essentially auctioning his daughters to the highest or most suitable bidder.
Early in the play, he insists on substantial dowries and formal promises from potential husbands, foregrounding marriage as a contract and financial transaction. His approach to his daughters is shaped entirely by their outward behaviour rather than their feelings or wellbeing.
Favouritism and social pressure
The Impact of Baptista's Favouritism
Baptista's favouritism towards Bianca and rejection of Kate actively deepen Katherine's alienation and anger. His treatment shows how family structures enforce and perpetuate gender roles. When Kate appears "tamed", Baptista is delighted to add an extra dowry, declaring her changed "as she had never been". This response makes clear that Kate's social and economic value increases when she conforms to expected behaviours, regardless of her inner feelings or whether the change is genuine.
Tranio and Grumio (Servants and disguise)
Class mobility and performance
Tranio's Challenge to Social Hierarchy
Tranio, Lucentio's servant, successfully swaps roles with his master and negotiates marriage contracts with Baptista. His cleverness and successful impersonation challenge rigid social hierarchies by demonstrating that intelligence and agency are not limited to the upper classes. He speaks confidently in his master's voice, striking formal bargains and illustrating how easily social status can be assumed through costume and language alone.
A fellow servant accuses Grumio of being "full of cony-catching", emphasising the atmosphere of mischief, trickery and practical jokes that frames the entire play. This language of deception connects to the play's broader interest in performance and illusion.
Comic relief and commentary
Grumio, Petruchio's servant, provides comic relief through his misunderstandings and wry observations about Petruchio's extreme behaviour. His clowning and literal-mindedness create a buffer between the audience and the harsh treatment of Kate, making the "taming" seem like a grotesque game whilst simultaneously hinting that Petruchio's methods are excessive and troubling.
Christopher Sly and the Induction
The frame narrative
Christopher Sly, the drunken tinker in the frame story, is tricked into believing he is a nobleman and then shown the play about Katherine and Petruchio. This framework foregrounds themes of illusion, performance and transformation from the very beginning. Early on, Sly is compared to a "beast" lying like a swine, then becomes the target of a nobleman's "practice" (trick or prank).
Thematic parallels
The Significance of the Frame Narrative
The Sly frame invites audiences to question the main action. If Sly's identity can be remade through costume and flattery, perhaps Katherine's "taming" is also less about genuine inner change and more about imposed role-playing. The prank on Sly parallels the "prank" on Kate: both involve powerful figures imposing a new identity on someone less powerful.
These parallels raise unsettling ethical questions about class, consent and the morality of making someone live out a fiction designed by others. The frame suggests that the entire main plot might be understood as an elaborate experiment or game rather than a straightforward story about reformation.
Key Points to Remember:
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Katherine's transformation is deliberately ambiguous - her final speech can be read as either genuine submission or ironic performance that exposes the artificiality of complete female obedience.
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Performance is everywhere in this play - nearly every character adopts roles or disguises, suggesting that social identities (including gender roles) are constructed rather than natural.
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Marriage is presented as economic transaction - fathers auction daughters, husbands wager on wives' obedience, and dowries determine social value.
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The servant characters challenge class hierarchies - Tranio's successful impersonation shows that social status depends on performance rather than inherent qualities.
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The Sly frame narrative shapes how we interpret the main plot - it suggests the entire taming story might be a kind of cruel joke or experiment, inviting us to question rather than accept the action we witness.