![]() ![]() She is less highly valued as a potential wife than her sister and humiliated by various male characters, by none more than her own husband Petruchio. Katherine's stubbornness and strong will cause her to be denigrated, insulted, and abused throughout the play. ![]() While both men and women in the play don't always behave in accordance with traditional gender roles, it is the women-and particularly Katherine-who are punished for such behavior. Perhaps with the exception of Petruchio, these men do not live up to the masculine ideal of a commanding husband in control of his wife, just as Bianca and the widow Hortensio marries turn out not to be the epitomes of female obedience their husbands may have thought they were. In the last scene of the play, Petruchio, Baptista, Hortensio, and Lucentio tease each other over who is ruled by his wife and is thus less of a man. The quiet, mild-mannered Bianca, for example, plays the traditional role of a woman well, while Katherine rebels against this stereotype with her boisterousness and refusal to be ordered around by a man. The play is filled with characters who fit and don't fit traditional gender roles-particularly the idea of the male as dominant and the female as submissive. Issues related to gender are hugely important in this play, which centers around Petruchio "taming" Katherine and forcing her into the traditionally submissive role of a wife. ![]()
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