Act 4
Killing with Kindness
Lecture on Act 4
of Taming of the Shrew
(or otherwise known as
The Dummies’ Guide to
Taming Your Wife!)
Agenda
• Overview of Act 4: Plot and Structure
• Petruchio VS Katherina
• Lucentio VS Hortensio
– These scenes surface power struggles, deception
and manipulation of identities and roles
– Also note the literary devices and techniques that
surface these themes and develop characterisation
Act 4 Scene Breakdown
• Five scenes in Act 4
• Odd numbered scenes (1, 3 and 5):
– Main plot - Petruchio & Katherina
– These scenes will be analysed together
because they portray Petruchio’s taming of
Katherina
• Even numbered scenes (2 and 4):
– Subplot – Lucentio & Bianca
Scenes One, Three & Five
Module #101 on
Taming your Wife.
Shame, Humiliate, Shame.
12 Essential Lessons.
Petruchio VS Katherina
• Scene 1: Describes Katherina’s first day spent
in Petruchio’s house.
• Note the setting “Petruchio’s country
house”
• Scenes should not be read independently
– consider the shift from the chaotic “mad
marriage” in the previous scene to the domestic
space of Petruchio’s house
• Conventions of “happily ever afters” do not
apply here, at least not for now
Thematic Concerns in these scenes
• Social hierarchy,
• Petruchio’s absolute linguistic power in his
marriage
• Violence– Domestic violence? Abuse?
• Forced submission of wife – a necessary and
socially expected venture?
• Power dynamics between husband and wife
• Marriage
#1 Shame her (in Public and at Home
• Scene with servants – opens with Grumio and
Curtis. Function of Grumio + Curtis
– Consider the setting
– Petruchio’s home where he is the ultimate master.
– Note the shift in this scene from the public humiliation
(the marriage) to the private humiliation (in the house,
in the domestic sphere – depriving her of food and
sleep – basic necessities)
• Would you consider this domestic violence and abuse?
Let her fall off a
diseased horse & into
mud
• Dramatic Technique: Grumio functions as the storyteller
and narrator (c/f 3.2.161 where he narrates the story of
their “mad marriage”.)
• Here he informs Curtis, his fellow servant, of their
wretched journey back. Amplifies the actual experience
as audience is left to imagine it.
– 4.1.1 He also mentions how he was beaten by
Petruchio, a prelude to what will occur later in this
scene – and makes audience anticipate further
violence (Effects)
Lecture her on selfcontrol after acting like a deranged
mad man
– Dramatic Technique : Curtis: Also functions as storyteller when
narrating what happens in their private chambers and allows
audience to further imagine Petruchio’s psychological torture of
her
– “Making a sermon of continency to her,/ And rails and
swears and rates, that she, poor soul,/ Knows not which
way to stand, to look, to speak,/ And sits as one new-risen
from dream.” 4.1.165
• Power dynamics between husband and wife – ironic that he is
lecturing her on self-control when he just displayed an utter lack of
self restraint in hitting his servants
– Her apparent powerlessness and silence (a stark contrast to her
earlier banter) also signals a shift in her behaviour and the
success of Petruchio’s taming.
Show her you are capable of
violence without laying a finger on her.
(do NOT beat her as you are a gentleman)
• Heightened dramatic action and violence: Petruchio
strikes his servants more than once and is harsh and
brutal.
– 4.1.130 He strikes
– 4.1.138 strikes – till Katherine attempts to
intervene.
• Effect: enhances farce and therefore downplays the
emotional and psychological violence that Katherina
experiences through Petruchio’s words and behaviour
Confuse her and make
members of
her side with the
your household
(that is half the battle won)
• Petruchio’s dialogue: alternates between
addressing servants (swearing harshly) and
Katherina (affectionately)
• His dialogue is interlaced with stage directions
that indicate violence
• 4.1.134 One, Kate, that you must kiss and
be acquainted with. / Where are my
slippers? Shall I have some water?/Come,
Kate and wash, and welcome heartily/ You
whoreson villain! Will you let it fall?”
– He strikes the Servant
• Effect: Asserting his mastery
Confuse her and make
members of
her side with the
your household
(that is half the battle won)
• Effect: confusion on Katherina’s part whilst the
audience may laugh at this comic effect/farce
whilst a more discerning reader or audience may
consider Petruchio’s taming technique
immensely brutal and cruel
• Thus the threat of violence always hangs in the
air even though he does not hit Katherina –
which brings us to the point of domestic violence
within the patriarchal framework of marriage.
Ensure you have a plan.
• Petruchio’s soliloquy and his diction reveal to us the
power dynamics in the marriage and the absolute control
that he wields (or desires to wield over Katherina)
– “Thus have I politicly begun my reign.” 4.1.170
• There is a method to his madness – c/f: mad marriage in
the previous scene where Tranio declares
– “Upon my life, Petruchio means but well” 3.2.22
Ensure you have a plan.
• Petruchio is shrew and this is reinforced by Curtis
commenting that
– “By this reckoning he is more shrew than she.”
4.1.72.
• Here, as an aside he details exactly what his method of
taming would be. One of the most memorable lines
would be how he proclaims that
– “This is a way to kill a wife with kindness”
4.1.190’
• Even though kill her is used as a metaphor for he surely
does not intend to take her life, a picture of violence is
immediately painted
• He does, however, want to kill the “Wild Kate”
Soliloquize your Plan
Last night she slept, nor tonight she
shall not.
As with the meat, some undeserved
fault
I’ll find about the making of the bed,
And here I’ll fling the pillow, there the
bolster,
This way the coverlet, another way the
sheets.
Ay, and amid this hurly I intend
That all is done in revered care of
her.
And in, conclusion she shal watch all
night,
And if she chance to nod I’ll rail and
brawl
And with the clamour keep her still
This is a way to kill a wife
with kindness,
And thus I’ll curb her mad
and headstrong
humour.
He that knows better
how to tame a shrew,
Now let him speak – ‘tis
charity to show.
4.1.180-193
Soliloquize your Plan
• A closer look at his soliloquy reveals the exact
techniques that he proposes to employ
• Dramatic effect of soliloquy?
• Persuades the audience to his point of view
• Provide them with foresight, and thus heighten
their expectation
• Reveal that reality is not what it appears to be
Thematic Concerns:
Domestic Violence
• Critics are split over whether or not Petruchio’s method
of taming amounts to domestic violence
• Historical context: In the Elizabethan period, shrewtaming narratives often involved the beating and
humiliation of women (verbal and physical abuse).
• Note, even the threat of death hovers in the air with the
mention of “kill” in Petruchio’s lines ‘This is a way
to kill a wife with kindness” L-190
• and Katherina appealing to Grumio in Scene 3, where
she says “’Twere deadly sickness or else
present death” should she not get any more
sleep or eat.”
Thematic Concerns:
Domestic Violence
• Severity of abuse undermined by the farcical dramatic
action but by laughing along, is not the audience also
complicit in Petruchio’s taming? Thus indicating that
the audience shares in the play’s patriarchal
assumptions?
• How do we rate the severity of abuse?
Imagine you are a hawk trainer
(Your wife is the wild hawk that ought to be tamed. Tsk.)
– One may then argue if this “new-and-improved”
shrew taming method is more acceptable. Let us take
a closer look at his speech:
• “My falcon now is sharp and passing empty,/ And till she
stoop she must not be full-gorged” 170
– Speech is filled with hawking metaphor and imagery:
directly linked to taming
– Animal imagery: refers to Katherina as falcon, haggard,
kite that bate and beat whilst he is the “keeper”, the
master
» The power dynamics between husband and wife is
clear
»Link to Induction?
Insist that it
is for her own
good.
• Taming is also done for her own good. Brings us
back to shrew taming narratives and social
norms – where a wife has to be tamed for her
own well-being.
– “That al is done in reverend care of her” 4.1.186
• Interesting as it appears to be a self-reflexive,
ironic nod to societal norms because here
Petruchio declares that he “intends” i.e.
pretends.
• Katherina confirms this in Scene 3 when she
says, “He does it under name of perfect
love.” Consider the ending of the play then.
Scene 3
• Plot: Grumio + Katherina: Katherina confides in
Grumio and pleads for food from him. He
refuses.
• Petruchio and Hortensio enter with meat and the
former continues to taunt her with it.
• Tailor and Haberdasher enter with a gown and
cap respectively that Katherina likes but
Petruchio turns them away despite Katherina’s
insistence that she likes them.
• Is this and can this be considered abuse?
Deny her of food & finery
• Aware of social expectations and norms
where Katherina does belong to a noble
family and would thus naturally desire a
beautiful gown and cape (is she then that
much of an outsider as we first perceive
her to be?)
• The deprivation of such finery is
Petruchio’s way of blackmailing her into
submission
Questions
• Although he does not beat her, and is apparently
more civilized since Katherina has made it clear
earlier that gentlemen who are civil will not hit a
woman, is this then a new and improved way of
taming one’s wife?
• Does this make it more acceptable?
• Can it then be considered non-violent? Many
critics argue that this is still violence as it
damages her psychologically and forces her to
relinquish her identity and spirit in order to live in
harmony with Petruchio
Scene 5: Moon, Sun, Moon.
• Plot: Petruchio + Katherina + Hortensio
are on the way to Baptista’s house where
Petruchio insists that it is the moon that is
shining when it is actually bright daylight.
Mess with her sense of reality
• Petruchio insists that day is night and an old man
(Vincentio) is a young virgin woman
• Katherina has to agree otherwise he would retract his
offer of kindness (a visit to her father’s)
• When he threatens to take her back to the isolation of his
home, Kate shifts her strategies and decides not to cross
him, saying instead:
“What you will have it nam’d, even that it is
And so it shall be so for Katherine.” 4.5.21
• It may be argued that what she has undergone is
abusive as this signifies Petruchio’s domination over her
speech and actions – ultimately reaching fruition in her
final speech (emotional & verbal abuse)
Shame, Humiliate,
Shame.
• At the core of all of these methods, one realises that
shame and humiliation underlies each of his strategies
• Consider the idea of shame and how Petruchio
systematically ensures she is humiliated and shamed in
both the public and the domestic sphere, breaking her
will and eventually, blurring her sense of identity and
reality
• Even if she is playing along, critics argue that she has to
behave and submit to Petruchio in order to survive and
live in harmony
Scenes 2 and 4
The Sub Plot
Hortensio. Bianca. Lucentio.
Scene 2: Face Off
VS
Scene 2: Face Off
•
•
•
•
•
Subplot: Hortensio Withdraws from the Courting of
Bianca
Lucentio + Tranio [Team Lucentio]
Hortensio [Team Hortensio]
Think about teams because of their various strategies
and supporting team members
Or, who are accomplices in the plan to deceive Baptista
Scene 2: Face Off
• Winner: Team L. Why does Hortensio withdraw? He is
put off by Bianca’s ease in falling in love with ‘Cambio’
– his resentment towards Bianca is clear in his words
– “But do forswear her/ As one unworthy all
the former favours” 4.2.29
• He refers to her as a “proud disdainful haggard” – irony
and is now unworthy. Note and comment on the irony?
• Why? Bianca does not fit his expectations of an ideal
wife and he vows to marry a widow instead.
• Or is he simply wounded?
Themes
• C/F:
– Themes:
• Societal Expectations and Roles of Women –
contrast with Katherina and Bianca, men decide
what is acceptable in a woman.
• Love and Romance – contrast with Petruchio’s
wooing of Katherina.
Scene 4: Enter “Vincentio”
• Subplot: Lucentio’s ‘father’ appears and
makes a deal with Baptista, sealing the
marriage proposal
• Again, Lucentio is not directly involved in the
marriage transaction here and thus the concept
of Lucentio marrying for love and romance is still
sustained, as opposed to Petruchio’s one
motive.
Scene 4: Enter “Vincentio”
• This time, Bianca is complicit in Lucentio’s plan
to deceive her father.
Thematic concerns reinforced:
• Marriage as trade, as a market,
• Also, Deception, Appearance and Reality, Roles
and Identities
Common Test Pointers:
• Read the question and understand its
requirements
• Formulate a strong & balanced thesis
• Plan your arguments (soliloquize it internally
if you must)
• Make a Point
• Provide Evidence
• Analyse and Evaluate your Evidence