In our excerpt, there are two major conspicuous exemplifications of this fact. First, during his speech Petruchio demands that Katherina, though only as a mockery, take a few steps in order for him to analyse whether she limps or not – ”O, let me see thee walk!”. She remarks Petruchio’s superiority claims and strikes back: ”Go, fool, and whom thou keep’st command.” The second situation which proves men’s leader attitude towards women is at the end of the text, declaimed as an implacable matter of fact – ”And therefore, setting all this chat aside,/ Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented/ That you shall be my wife your dowry greed on;/ And will you, nill you, I will marry you.” Thus, men patently triumph irrespective of women’s will and objection.
The second motif we are facing with within our fragment is related somehow to the dumb creatures – perceiving women as wild animals which have to be tamed. The sequence under the debate abounds with such allusions. The very title of the play contains two of them. Therefore, Kate is portrayed as a ”shrew” and her adaptation to the new authority is metaphorically called ”taming”. The meeting itself between the characters could be compared to the first interaction of a patient tamer with an untamed animal, inside a cage. If we are to analyse the facts through this point of view, we could find an explanation for two gestures. While arguing with Petruchio, all of a sudden, Katherina strikes him, but the ”gentleman of Verona” choses not to hit her back. She is the animal that bites, due to its wild nature and due its fear of the unknown, whereas Petruchio is the tamer who knows that physical violence against his ”pet” whould only amplify the gap between them, bringing about hatred, mistrust and an almost certain failure in the domestication process.
In regard to the animal imagery, besides the ”shrew” appellation, Petruchio labels Kate as well ”wasp” and ”turtle”. On the other side, Katherina fires back with offences such as: ”ass”, ”jade” or ”buzzard” and warn him in a ”waspish” manner to beware her sting. Only that Petruchio decodes the meaning of the ”sting” as being nothing esle but her sharp tongue. Furthermore, he comes up with a retort to Kate’s every affront, mercilessly twisting the meanings to his advantage – ”K: Asses are made to bear, and so are you./ P: Women are made to bear, and so are you.”; ”K: Well ta’en, and like a buzzard./ P: O, slow-wing’d turtle, shall a buzzard take thee?”; ”P: Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail./ K: In his tongue./ P:Whose tongue?/ K: Yours, if you talk of tales; and so farewell./ P: What, with my tongue in your tale?”; ”K: Yes, keep you warm./ P: Marry, so I mean, sweet Katherine, in thy bed.”.
Through all these witty replies, Shakespeare foregrounds Petruchio as a worthy suitor for Baptista’s daughter, capable of suppressing Kate’s ”uprisings”. After their heated exchange, it becomes manifest that they are destined to marry.
Another theme of primary importance consists in using reverse psychology. Apart from distorting Kathrine’s shrewish replies, Petruchio naturally annoys her by pretending that every harsh thing that she says or does is kind and gentle. In his ”maiden speech” delivered to the future bride at the beginning of the wooing sequence, Petruchio deliberately renders an almost chaste image of the ”shrew”. He hypocritically claims he overheard people describing her in eulogistic words: ”bonny Kate”; ”the prettiest Kate in Christendom”; ”super-dainty Kate”. Moreover, he declares that ”... thy mildness prais’d in every town,/ Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded”.
After the verbal fireworks, convincing himself of her ”benevolent” reputation, he humorously contradicts ”the world”, telling that ”...I find you passing gentle./ ...For thou art plesant, gamesome, passing courteous,/ But slow in speech, yet sweet as springtime flowers./” and so forth.
STYLISTIC DEVICES
The most brilliant devices encountered throughout our excerpt are indubitably the elaborate puns. Each one puts up a new metaphor from the other’s comments. The overall rule could be convey in the following formula: Kate’s puns generally insult or threaten whereas Petruchio’s turn into some more or less intricate sexual innuendoes. Thus, both characters employ the verb ”to bear”. Kate makes use of the meaning ”to carry”, and Petruchio of ”giving birth to a baby” meaning.
However, the latter masterfully build up another two overtones for sexual intercourses, although not employing puns. There are rather some linguistic ”sophistries”. One of them reads ”my tongue in your tail” and it is by far the most hilarious. The second one is inserted within the conclusive speech from the end, when Petruchio exploits Kate’s line with ”keep you warm”, in order to reach an irrevocable inference regarding his own desire: ”Marry, so I mean, sweet Kate, in thy bed”.
Two more genuine puns originate in the words ”moveable” and ”arms” respectively. ”Moveable” (”K: ...I knew you at the first/ You were a moveable./ P: Why, what’s a moveable?/ K: A join’d-stool”) is a law term for a personal possession such as a piece of furniture, and, on the other side it can refer to the adjectival meaning of not being fixed in one place or position. ”Arms” is the plural for limbs, or an abridged version for ”coat of arms”. So, with a sole line, Katherina both warns Petruchio that if he hits her, he could lose his heraldic emblem and, on the other side, she casts a sort of a threat-curse for the hands that could hurt her.
Derivations of the idiom ”wit” are also to be mentioned as exquisitely blended: ”P: It is extempore (goodly speech), from my mother wit./ K: A witty mother! witless esle her son.”
FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
Indubitably, the chain of retorts rendered within these lines extracted from ”The Taming of the Shrew” epitomizes Shakespeare’s outstanding ability to juggle with words, i.e. his linguistic genius.
Only that beyond this comedy’s main plot and its author’s craftsmanship, one can discover the achievement of the ultimate goal cherished by the Renaissance English writing pioneers, namely the metamorphosis of English into a literary language, worthy of comparison with Latin and Greek.
Petruchio’s original method of subduig the shrewish Kate emphasises in fact an unequivocal proof of the English language worthiness.
