How Does Shakespeare Establish the Character of Katherina?

She replies, and in my opinion the way that is required to support and build her character by saying:

'Is it your will to make a stale of me?'

In this case stale has a double meaning. Stale can mean either 'laughing stock' or a prostitute.

By saying her father could be portraying her as a prostitute, Shakespeare is establishing in her character in the sense that she speaks her mind and is not intimidated even if she saying something so controversial for a young woman in the Elizabethan reign.

The reaction of Gremio to Baptista to Katherina is rather contemptuous in that he says

'To cart her rather, she is too rough for me'

'To cart her' meaning to drag her through the streets, a common punishment for bawds and whores. This is partly a reaction to Baptista's advertisement. The fact that she is 'too rough' and is being compared to a common whore is a terrible insult to Katherina, the daughter of a rich gentleman but Shakespeare is making it quite clear this girl is the refined, feminine, attractive daughter that Bianca is.

Later on, she is described as

'Katherine the curst. A title for a maid of all titles the worst.'

This strengthens the idea that Katherina is a dreadful girl. Grumio has described her to Petruchio as curst and as the worst girl you could possibly meet. Petruchio has the idea that he is destined to tame this 'wild creature'. In response, probably shocked about this Grumio asks him

'Will you woo this wildcat?'

This is another of the many and frequent insults that Katherina gets about her distinguished fiery temper.

Shakespeare makes it very clear that Baptista favours Bianca over Katherina. In the scene where we see Katherina tying up Bianca's hands then Baptista entering and finding Bianca in tears, although he is naturally angry with her Katherina, he is particularly cold towards Katherina and takes pity on Bianca.

When Petruchio calls at the house of Baptista, he calls her

'Katherina, fair and virtuous'.

Baptista replies coldly

'I have a daughter'.

Petruchio goes on to speak of how he has heard of her:

'Hearing of her beauty and wit, wondrous qualities, her mild behaviour'.

One wonders whether he is being sarcastic or whether this is what he will tame her into.

Baptista replies

'She is not for your turn, the more my grief'

He is saying quite blatantly that Petruchio would not want Katherina, he would never marry Katherina and so Baptista will be unhappy. He is either at this point saying that he does not like Katherina, or he is being totally honest. The audience if the comment is taken as though he is being honest, although would not have seen much of Katherina yet but would have had a good idea of her character. Coming from her father to someone who wished to be Katherina's suitor, is definitely a poor first impression to the audience of the scale of just how unrefined Katherina's character is.

Petruchio says this of Katherina to Baptista when he is persuading Baptista to let him court Katherina:

'Where two raging fires meet together'

Petruchio is describing himself and Katherina each as a raging fire. The fires meeting together, I believe are Petruchio and Katherina married.

'They do consume the thing that feeds their fury'

Other people (things) provoke (feed) them so they in turn are furious.

'Though little fire grows great with little wind'

Little insulting or mocking comments build up and so the fires' temper grows.

'Yet extreme gusts will blow out fire and all'

Petruchio is set out to blow out Katherina's fire.

Through the scene where Katherina is tying up Bianca's hands, we are shown an example of why she is known as 'Katherina the curst'. This is because, naturally she is jealous of Bianca. For example she calls Bianca a 'minion'. This means 'pampered favourite'. This is a constant accusation by Katherina. I do not personally disagree she is definitely the favourite, not that it is not difficult to see why!

Katherina's reactions are always exaggerated and dramatised. Shakespeare portrays her reactions to what people say as normally being rude and coarse.

It is obvious from the book that she is definitely not very pretty. Bianca appears to be very beautiful as she has a number of suitors disguising themselves to woo her.

In Conclusion to this, Katherina's character is established both quickly and definitely. Everything about her character from her actual reactions to what people say about her and how they talk of her. I think one of the key things Shakespeare does to establish just how 'curst' she is, is her own father giving her no respect and being offensive to her. He has established Katherina's character and has managed to do this successfully and in every way possible.