Lucine And Petruchio In Shakespeare's The Taming Of The Shrew

If you took time to look through the vast works of Shakespeare, you would begin to notice that many of his plays contain similar themes or events. One of the recurring themes throughout his works is romance. The relationships that develop between characters can be observed at a closer level in order to draw out more connections between the plays. In some of Shakespeare’s works he also ends up including a developing relationship with side characters in order to compare one relationship to another. This can be seen in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew with Lucio and Bianca being compared to Petruchio and Katherine. The two relationships that are near polar opposites are Katherine and Petruchio, in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew,

At the beginning of their relationship it can easily be said that Katherine is the one with no modesty. Out of greed Petruchio approaches her house and tells Katherine’s father about his plans to marry her. She tries everything she can to get away from him. This is a scene that I find puzzling because Katherine was always mad with herself for never being able to find a suitor and affecting her younger sister Bianca 's love life. After Petruchio catches up with her they seem to switch roles. Petruchio is now the one with no modesty as he forces Katherine to stay and hear him out. Once they are on their way back to Petruchio’s home, the changing of roles intensifies as Petruchio treats Katherine as nothing more than a hindrance. When they finally arrive at the castle, Petruchio’s servants seem like they want to treat Katherine well, however Petruchio has a different plan. He ruins the whole dinner saying it is not fit for such a woman and sends Katherine off to bed hungry and tired. This is the point when some begin to question the validity of statements claiming Katherine as a shrew. According to Laurie E. Maguire, “ Katherine is described as a wild animal, a wildcat, a wasp, a devil, a fiend of hell, she does very little to earn her wild and diabolic epithets.” (30). Throughout the remainder of the play Petruchio continues to treat Katherine as his slave. He

This relationship is similar, in a way, from the start. Neither of them show any signs of love or affection for one another, and they act as if they hate each other’s guts. This behavior proceeds through much of the play, that is until they are tricked into thinking that the other one is in love with them. After this event it seems as if they do a complete turn and now are head over heels in love with each other, however throughout the play we see Beatrice throwing jabs at Benedick. Laurie E. Maguire believes that these jabs input a factor of comedy into the relationship, “Words in Much Ado have considerable somatic power. In the comic plot, Beatrice ‘speaks poniards, and every word stabs’ (2.1.247-8); Benedick faces her ‘paper bullets of the brain’ (2.3.240-1).” (177). Benedick and Beatrice have known each other for a very long time and they are from two similar social classes. As the story implies the audience is to believe that they have had a previous relationship that went bad. Beatrice and Benedick seem to be in love, yes, however they only love each other because they heard false rumors about the other one’s feelings. As critic Stephen Greenblatt puts it, “Only Beatrice and Benedick, in that play and indeed among all the couples of the principal comedies, seem to hold out the possibility of a sustained intimacy, and then only if the