And Lucentio replies with:
‘Gramercies, Tranio well dost thou advise’
This brief interaction shows how Tranio speaks to his master, more of a friendly mark than something said by a servant who must obey commands. When they are watching the show from the sidelines, they mutter and make remarks like two old women. They are not necessarily cynical, but merely sharing their feelings with each other. For example Tranio says:
[Aside to Lucentio]
‘Husht, master, here’s some good pastime toward;
That wench is stark mad, or wonderful froward’
These remarks about Katherine show how Tranio speaks to Lucentio freely unlike a servant to his master. It shows that they trust each other and believe they can talk in confidence over many different issues. Another example of this is when Lucentio is talking to Tranio about how much he is love with Bianca, Tranio listens and is patient but he also brings Lucentio back down to earth by reminding him that to reach his goal of obtaining Biancas hand in marriage her elder sister must be wed off first. He helps Lucentio work out a cunning plan to achieve his goal, and they are both willing to exchange clothes and take one another’s place. They both come up with the plan at the same time, but Tranio is clever enough to point out the pitfalls to help Lucentio. To carry out the plan, they must obviously know each other very well to take up their roles.
Another example of a master – slave relationship is between Petruchio and Grumio, but this is quite different form the previous relationship. Petruchio and Grumio do not really understand each other as well as Tranio and Lucentio. For example when Petruchio asked Grumio to do something he says:
‘Here Sirrah come knock I say’
Grumio thinks that someone has been disrespectful and they have to be hit, whereas Petruchio is actually just asking Grumio to knock on the gate. They fall out over this, Petruchio hits Grumio and they have to be split up by Hortensio.
Petruchio is not very friendly towards his servant, as he picks him up by the ears and is violent towards him. This I believe represents a more stereotypical view of what people think masters and servants act like and do. But this is not necessarily true as Tranio and Lucentio represent a different and unique servant-master relationship.
The father, Baptista and his daughter Bianca have a strong father-daughter relationship. In fact Baptista tends to favour Bianca over his elder daughter Katherine. Bianca seems to get on well better with him, as Bianca could be said as ‘daddy’s little girl’.
Baptista, following tradition, will not let Bianca get married until Katherine is married, but this could be harder than it seems.
Baptista does not get on as well with Katherine, he does not want her to depend on him all her life so he wants to marry her off, also so that Bianca can get married. He says this:
‘Gentlemen, importune me no farther,
For how I am firmly resolved you know.
That is, not to bestow my youngest daughter
Before I have a husband for the elder.’
Bianca and Katherine are antagonistic towards each other as shown in the play. Katherine actually ties Bianca’s hands up and chases her around the room. Katherine’s knowledge of Bianca being Baptista’s favourite daughter is shown. For example Katherine calls Bianca a ‘minion’, which is term of abuse for the spoilt favourite child. And also when Baptista intervenes he calls Katherine a ‘dame’ or ‘madam’ which is a term of rebuke, here Baptista’s partiality for his younger daughter is shown and also partly explains Katherine’s bitterness. Also Katherine could be bitter because she is actually jealous of the attention that Bianca is receiving, and the fact that all the suitors are looking to wed Bianca and not her.
In general throughout the characters in the play Katherine is known as ‘cursed’ Katherine, and a person that no man would want to wed. For example Gremio says:
‘ She’s too rough for me’
She has a reputation throughout the townsfolk that is not good.
We know little about Petruchio, apart from the fact that his intention in coming to Padua was to ‘wive it well’ or to ‘tame the shrew’ to woo Katherine.
When the two come together Petruchio has already agreed to marry Katherine, they introduce themselves but that is the last normal talk they speak, because from that moment forward the only sounds that emit from their mouths are insults of one kind or another, with sometimes long cleverly constructed sentences but most of the time they just speak in quick witted insulting remarks such as:
‘ Asses are made to bear and so are you’
with:
‘ Women are made to bear and so are you’
Petruchio is patient with the stubborn Katherine and actually seems to enjoy the argument.
There is strong evidence that the two are equally matched as they are both intelligent to use clever language in providing witty remarks, they are made for each other. The relationship here is very tenuous, it is not strong, but still, Petruchio and Katherine are similar in many ways. As we have not read further in to the play I cannot state anymore, although we now know that finally Katherine has found herself a possible suitor. At the end of their confrontation Petruchio says to her father:
‘I must and will have Katherine to be my wife’
This shows that Petruchio is determined but whether this is good or bad from the point of view of Katherine we do not know.
Shakespeare’s dramatic purpose in presenting a variety of relationships is to compare them to the main relationship of the play. The way he has constructed the play is that it leads up to Petruchio and Katherine with sufficient information on their backgrounds and past relationships to see whether the audience think that the relationship will work out or not. For example, Petruchios’ past relationship that we have seen has been with his servant Grumio. This was not a very close or trusting relationship, so will Petruchio be able to obtain this with Katherine or does he want to? I do not know the answer to the question yet, but it will prove to be very interesting to find out. The same can be said with Katherine as her relationship with her father and her sister have not been very stable or trusting either, the audience must be wondering how on earth the two will co-exist. This is the dramatic purpose that Shakespeare wanted and it has worked very well so far.
