The Taming of the Shrew Act 3

 

Act 3, Scene 1 The Taming of the Shrew

Summary

In Baptista's house, the disguised suitors Lucentio (Cambio) and Hortensio (Litio) vie for Bianca's attention under the pretense of tutoring her. Bianca cleverly takes control, setting the terms of the lesson and alternating between them.

Lucentio, while pretending to construe Latin lines from Ovid, uses them to secretly reveal his true identity and love for her. Bianca responds with caution but interest, using the same coded language. Hortensio, attempting to woo her through a musical "gamut" (scale) that spells out a love note, is outright rejected by Bianca, who calls his invention silly.

The session is interrupted by a servant announcing that Bianca must help prepare for Katherine's wedding the next day. After Bianca and Lucentio exit, a suspicious and scorned Hortensio resolves to abandon Bianca if she favors a mere "pedant" (schoolmaster).

Analysis

1. The Real Bianca: Intelligence and Agency

This scene reveals Bianca as far from the passive, silent maiden she appears in public. She:

• Exerts Control: She stops the men's squabbling, dictates the structure of the lesson ("here sit we down...Take you your instrument"), and dismisses Hortensio's advances.
• Displays Cunning: She quickly understands and engages with Lucentio's coded confession, showing intellectual agility. Her reply ("I know you not...I trust you not...take heed he hear us not") is not a rejection but a discreet, cautious acknowledgment, revealing her capacity for secret plotting.
• Rejects Convention: She dismisses Hortensio's contrived, old-fashioned courtly love poem ("Old fashions please me best"). This hints at a modern sensibility and suggests she will not be won by superficial or traditional gestures.

2. Satire of Courtly Love and Education

The scene satirizes both the classical education and the courtly love tradition:

• Latin as a Tool for Seduction: Lucentio corrupts the scholarly study of Ovid (a poet of love and transformation) into a vehicle for his own seduction, turning high culture into a low deceit.
• Music as a Clumsy Tool: Hortensio's attempt to use music—the traditional art of courtly lovers—is portrayed as awkward and ineffective. His "gamut" is a transparent and clumsy device, rightly mocked by Bianca.
• The "Lessons" Are a Farce: The entire tutoring session is a sham, revealing how education and art are subverted by baser desires (love, rivalry, social climbing).

3. Contrast with the Main Plot

This quiet, verbal, clandestine courtship stands in stark contrast to the loud, public, and brutal conflict between Petruchio and Katherine.

• Method: Lucentio uses secrecy, subtext, and intellectual alliance. Petruchio uses public performance, confrontation, and psychological dominance.
• Bianca vs. Kate: Bianca's rebellion is quiet, subtle, and manipulative within accepted bounds. Kate's is loud, physical, and socially unacceptable. The scene suggests Bianca's "mildness" may be its own kind of performance, promising future complications.

4. Advancement of the Disguise Plot

• Lucentio's gamble pays off; he successfully communicates with Bianca and gains a foothold.
• Hortensio's suspicion marks the beginning of his removal as a serious rival. His declaration that he will "change" (find another woman) if Bianca is "ranging" (fickle) foreshadows his later exit from the Bianca plot.
• The reminder of Kate's wedding tomorrow heightens the dramatic tension, juxtaposing the two sisters' trajectories.

5. Theme of Disguise and Perception

The core irony is that the "real" Lucentio (in disguise) connects with Bianca authentically, while the "real" Hortensio (in disguise) fails. Disguise here enables truth rather than concealing it. Bianca judges the men beneath their roles, accepting the one with genuine feeling (Lucentio) and rejecting the one with a contrived approach (Hortensio).

In essence, Act 3, Scene 1 shifts focus to the subplot, deepening Bianca's character and advancing the clandestine romance. It provides a comic, intellectual counterpoint to the physical comedy of the main plot, while further exploring the play's central ideas: the performativity of identity, the subversion of social rituals, and the complex, often hidden, agency of women in a patriarchal system. The "taming" here is not of a shrew, but of a seemingly docile daughter through secret collusion.

 

Act 3, Scene 2 The Taming of the Shrew

Summary

It is Petruchio and Katherine's wedding day. Petruchio is conspicuously late, causing Katherine public humiliation and distress. When he finally arrives, he is outrageously dressed in mismatched,破烂的clothes, riding a diseased horse, with his servant Grumio similarly attired. He dismisses all criticism of his appearance.

Gremio then reports the wedding ceremony itself, describing it as a chaotic farce: Petruchio swore loudly, struck the priest, threw wine in the sexton's face, and kissed Katherine with a thunderous smack.

After the ceremony, Petruchio announces he will not stay for the wedding feast and insists on leaving immediately with Katherine, despite her, Baptista's, and the guests' protests. When Katherine openly defies him, he overrules her, declaring her his property ("my goods, my chattels"). He stages a mock rescue, claiming they are beset by thieves, and forcibly escorts her away. The stunned wedding party remains behind to hold the feast without the bride and groom.

Analysis

1. Petruchio's "Taming" Strategy: Public Humiliation and Isolation

Petruchio's actions are a calculated first strike in his campaign:

• Undermining Social Ritual: By being late and dressed like a fool, he turns the wedding—a sacred social ceremony—into a laughingstock, stripping Katherine of its dignity and honor. He makes her the object of pity and mockery ("the world point at poor Katherine").
• The Chaotic Wedding: His behavior in church (Gremio's report) continues this assault on decorum. It transfers the label of "shrew" or "madman" from Katherine to himself, but in doing so, he controls the narrative completely. He associates her with chaos merely by proximity.
• Isolation: His refusal to attend the feast is crucial. It severs Katherine from her family, friends, and familiar social context—her support system and the stage for her own defiant performances. He removes her to his territory, where he can control all reality.

2. Katherine's Vulnerability

For the first time, Katherine is not in control. Her fierce spirit is met not with argument but with a more powerful, unpredictable force that operates outside the rules she understands.

• She expresses genuine pain and shame ("No shame but mine").
• Her final attempt to assert her will ("I will not go today... till I please myself") is met not with a counter-argument but with a legalistic declaration of ownership and a fabricated dramatic scene. Her tools (words, anger) are rendered useless.

3. The Language of Possession

Petruchio's most famous speech is a brutal articulation of patriarchal law:

"She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house, / My household stuff, my field, my barn, / My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything."
This reduces Katherine from a human antagonist to property. It’s not a lover's or even a husband's speech, but that of a conqueror taking possession of spoils. It legally justifies his imminent psychological manipulation.

4. Performance and Reality

Petruchio is a master dramatist:

• He stages his entrance as a "wondrous monument, / Some comet or unusual prodigy."
• He frames their abrupt departure as a heroic rescue from "thieves."
  He constantly creates theatrical scenarios that reframe his abusive control as something else (eccentricity, protection), forcing Katherine to play a role in his insane play. This directly mirrors the Lord's trick on Sly—both subjects are placed inside a fabricated reality.

5. Contrast with the Bianca Plot

While the main plot descends into public chaos and forced removal, the subplot continues as a comedy of secret wit and disguise. Tranio calmly plots to find a false Vincentio. This juxtaposition highlights two models of marriage acquisition: one through brute force and public spectacle, the other through deception and legal trickery. Both are deeply problematic, but Petruchio's is the more violently theatrical.

6. Comic Grotesquerie

The scene is peak Shakespearean farce. The extended description of Petruchio's diseased horse and ridiculous clothes (Biondello's speech) is a masterpiece of comic excess. The reported violence at the wedding is grotesquely funny. This humor, however, is dark, underpinned by Katherine's very real anguish.

In essence, Act 3, Scene 2 is the pivotal act of "taming." Petruchio successfully dismantles Katherine's social identity, publicly associates her with his own mad performance, legally claims her as chattel, and isolates her from her world. The "shrew" is not yet broken, but she has been strategically captured and removed from the battlefield. The comedy now shifts from the public square to the private, psychological arena of Petruchio's country house.