A person’s appearance can dictate their life, including how they act and how they are treated. If a person looks intimidating, they will be treated with respect since they seem so scary and are frightening. If a person looks sweet and kind, they may be manipulated and hurt. This is often proved with characters from books or plays. The character may be very sweet and kind, but once you change their appearance, they change as a person. This connects well to Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew.” There are few characters in this play that truly represent this idea well. Those characters are Bianca, Katherine, and Petruchio. These characters all have very strong personalities and changing their appearance could easily change their personalities, as well aso their treatment of others and others treatment towards them.
Bianca, one of the main characters in “The Taming of the Shrew,” seems too good to be true in the opening scene of the play. Even her name, which means 'white,' implies purity. Her acceptance of her father Baptista's claim that she will not be allowed to marry until her older sister Katherine does is almost angel-like. However, in most art depictions of Bianca, she’s not the prettiest girl. If Bianca was portrayed as someone whose beauty was overwhelming, how she would be treated and act like would be quite different. While her treatment would still be positive, Bianca might build up a giant ego. If she was even prettier, both other people in the town and her family, besides Katherine, would treat her even more like royalty. People are generally kinder to pretty people, often to gain a likeness, or a romantic connection. She would be pampered and complimented excessively. Paired with this, Bianca would treat others oppositely. She would have a big enough ego to be able to go around saying rude things to people. She would get away with it, too, because everyone would like her. While Bianca’s life would improve with this appearance change, there are other characters whose lives would become worse.
