True, Katherine offers to put her hand beneath her master's foot, but as one critic observed, it is difficult to avoid an ironic reading of this moment, and perhaps shows even more shrewd husband management than Bianca. (Heaney, 1998) This is how the relations between the sexes should be governed, suggests Shakespeare, how the 'real' showmanship should take place, unlike "Ten Things I Hate about You," which attempts to say more through its greater use of realism, but ultimately says less, with is more sparse use of irony, more static minor characters, wiser adults, and the work's lesser comprehension of how the genders perform and manipulate their roles on stage and in life
Though Pertuchio must end up with the upper hand in this scene -- that is the way it's scripted -- there was a definite choice made here to make Katherine seem weaker, and a different interpretation of the script would lead to very different action. In her essay "The London Scene: The City and the Court," Anne Barton reflects that Shakespeare's plays demonstrated a "lack of social detail" and biting edge when compared to other playwrights of his time (Barton 127)
/ Now, Kate, I am a husband for your turn; / Thou must be married to no man but me; / for I am he am born to tame you Kate, / and bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate / Conformable as other household Kates."(Shakespeare, 24) the wife obviously needs to be 'conformable', that is, obedient and devoid of any personal will to speak or act in a certain way
Her speech is, after all, only an offer. And Petruchio responds to the offer, not by asking her to humiliate herself, but by asking her to kiss him - "Come on, and kiss me, Kate" (184) -- which emphasizes mutual affection rather than servile devotion (Beck, 1998, p
Love of course is a central theme in the play, but from the first, Shakespeare shows this is not your "typical" love match. "At times Petruchio behaves like a bully and a brute, and his tactics with Katherine can be read as gratuitously severe and prolonged tormenting of her" (Brown, 1995, p
146-156). The questions that the play raises about Petruchio's financial competence give this last lecture of Kate's a particular piquancy (Cole, 1995, p
Petruchio: Whose tongue? Katherine: Yours, if you talk of tales, and so farewell. Petruchio: What, with my tongue in your tail? (Shakespeare, II