At the beginning of act 1 there are several main characters present; these being Lucientio, Tranio, Gremio, and Hortensio. These are the key male roles in the play. Lucientio is a wealthy, upper class gentleman who uses intricate eloquent language. ‘Love-in-idleness’ demonstrates romantic discourse and speculates a frequent use of educated and intellectual phrases. Lucientio would appear to the audience to be madly in love with Bianca and it was love at first sight. They would interpret him to be educated and wealthy with aspirations and ambitions to better him ‘A course of learning and ingenious study’. This quote shows Lucientio’s high hopes for his education and exhibits his willingness to improve himself. It is clear that he is not thinking about finding a wife. Lucientio’s relevance to the plot is that he is a suitor to Bianca but without using a disguise he is unlikely to marry her as Gremio and Hortensio arrived first and had already had the chance to make an impression and influence Baptista. Lucientio’s overall effect on the plot is a positive one as he is clearly the best suitor for Bianca, and Gremio and Hortensio are clearly only fixated on the wealth they may inherit by marrying her. However, while Lucientio is teaching Bianca under the name of Cambio, he is deceiving her as she thinks that he is someone that he is not. This again is dramatic irony, as although the audience are aware of what is going on the other characters in the play do not. It also creates dramatic tension as it was hard for the audience to distinguish or determine when Lucientio was going to reveal his true identity to Bianca, or how she would react to finding out about it. Lucientio’s language changes very little while he is in disguise, as it may be that it is easier for a poor person to pretend to be a wealthy person than it is for a wealthy person to pretend to be a poor person. Thankfully, though, Bianca is not upset or distinctly traumatized by the fact that the man she fell in love with in her lessons with him (Cambio the tutor) was actually Lucientio the upper class gentlemen who went to Padua to learn, not to get married.
Tranio is the servant of Lucientio and is educated, obedient and frequently uses subservient language. The audience would perceive him as deeply dedicated to Lucientio and it is possible that Tranio idolises him ‘Pardon me, gentle master mine’. The words that Tranio uses denoted for us a great deal of respect held by Tranio for Lucientio, and demonstrates a use of reverential vocabulary. His relevance to the plot is that in the Elizabethan time that the play was written it would be customary for an upper-class gentleman like Lucientio to have a servant, and also, without Tranio, Lucientio would have been unable to undertake a disguise as he would have had no one to cover for his disappearance. Tranio overall has a positive effect on the play as he supports Lucientio and ultimately means that Lucientio would have been able to fall in love with Bianca and consequently intensify the romantic aspect of the play. However, it is key that when Tranio is in disguise he becomes a more confident, and secure individual. Also his language becomes more individual and less complacent. The educated, upper class language that he uses when identifying himself to Baptista as a suitor to Bianca is totally dissimilar to that that he was using in Lucientio’s presence.
The role reversal between Tranio and Lucientio is controversial in the way that not only are they exchanging social roles but social class also. However, Lucientio’s love for Bianca evidently is so immense that he feels that he would rather get close to her on a personal and intimate level in private than appeal to her father Baptista for permission for her hand in marriage ‘While idly I stood looking on I found the effect of love-in-idleness’. This surmises that Lucientio considers his love for Bianca as lethargic and exhausted, and the use of such language demonstrates that he perhaps is deceitful to Bianca in the way that although he clearly is infatuated by her there is a chance that he cannot control his feelings and feels, at the time that he said it, that his love is not being gratefully received or even acknowledged.
Hortensio is rather an optional character in the play, as although he has a purpose in some respects he is not obligatory. The language he uses is rather timid and timorous, mostly speaking in prose, which gives a negative representation of himself. ‘Tush, Gremio’ gives the impression that Hortensio is afraid to contradict Gremio, or is just too reticent to do so. The audience could interpret that although it is palpable that Hortensio has an opinion, he chooses not to exhibit it because the character is not assertive enough to do so. For example, when Petruchio’s plan is unveiled it is clear that although he understands his reasons, he does not agree with them. His only real role in the play is as a suitor for Bianca, and it is due to this that he has a rather neutral effect on the play overall.
Gremio is a wealthy gentleman that habitually uses mature and graceful language even though he has a rather abrupt perception of life ‘to cart her rather: she is too rough for me’. This signifies for us a brutal, masculine perception of Katherina’s harsh personality. He, like Hortensio, predominantly speaks in prose giving an equally negative effect. He is the most mature suitor apparent in the way that he is referred to as ‘grey beard’. It could be because of this that he seems to make such a major concern of his ostensible wealth, as he feels ‘out of Bianca’s league’ due to his age. Gremio’s relevance to the plot is that he is a suitor to Bianca and without him there would have been no one for Lucientio to compete against for Bianca’s hand in marriage.
Other male characters in the play are Petruchio, Baptista and the Pedant. The Pedant is a significant male character as he is the only character in disguise that is disguised by Tranio and his persuasive use of language into deceiving the people by being disguised in the first place. When the Pedant meets Tranio for the first time his language is simplistic and distinctive of that used by a lower class individual. Also, the way in which he blatantly appeals for sympathy from Tranio definitely defines him as working class, as it would be severely unethical for an upper class man to attempt to gain sympathy from somebody else. ‘Alas sir, it is worse for me than so, for I have bills to exchange for money at Florence’. Also, the language over all isn’t as elaborate and shows less intellectualism than that used by the upper class gentlemen in the play. When the Pedant later meets Baptista while disguised as Vincentio he makes an extremely flattering speech to him using educated, intricate language to which Baptista is very impressed ‘Sir, by your leave having come to Padua…made me acquainted with a weighty cause of love between your daughter and my son…signor Baptista, of whom I hear so well’. When the Pedant says this it is clear that, for Tranio’s sake as well as his own he wishes to make a lasting indentation on Baptista’s perception of him so that Lucientio and Bianca can marry and the Pedant can be on his way. The Pedant’s disguise is the most significant in the whole play as if it was not for the Pedant being in disguise as Vincentio at the same time that the real Vincentio arrived to visit his son Lucientio then the disguises and the deception would never have been revealed.
Petruchio is a significant upper class gentleman who, although he pretends to be prosperous actually has very little wealth. He is a rather deceptive character in the play as he manages to deceive people without being disguised and he does this with cunning and ingenuity. He is also very assertive and dominant within the play and because of this he often uses assertive and dominant language. He also frequently undertakes the use of rhetorical questions and is particularly argumentative ‘When you are gentle, you shall have one and not before then’. Here it is clear that Petruchio's patience is surely diminishing towards Katherina and that is the cause of such indecorous and barbarous language in response to Katherina’s question. Petruchio’s relevance to the plot is to marry off Katherina to allow Bianca to be married and also to get rich quick by gaining Katherina’s inheritance from her father. Overall Petruchio has a positive effect on the play as if it weren’t for Petruchio marrying Katherina then, in tradition with the expectations of Elizabethan times then Bianca would not have been able to marry and therefore there would have been little hope for the suitors of Bianca, ultimately leading to a short and uninteresting play.
Baptista is the least deceptive of all the men as he perhaps deceives people subconsciously without fully understanding the reasons his behaviours is deceptive. For example, the way in which he plays the suitors us against each other for the hands in marriage for his two daughters he is clearly choosing upon wealth and nothing else. This implies that he doesn’t care too much for whom his daughters marry just so long as they are rich and can support his daughters well. In some views this would be seen as a righteous act but in Elizabethan culture there would have been many more elements to a husband that should be taken into account for a daughter’s husband, not just wealth and social class ‘Thou can assure my daughter greatest dower shall have my Bianca’s love’. We can surmise from this that Baptista had little respect or concern for the eventual husband of Bianca, and demonstrates yet another type of deceit in the play.
To conclude, the play constantly indulges in the ideas of deceit, enlisting in deceptive behaviours and actions to achieve something. This leads us to believe that deceit is therefore a very key factor in the entire play and without it the Taming of the Shrew would be unsuccessful in its intentions as a comedy.
