Taming the Shrew

“Thus in plain terms: your father hath consentedThat you shall be my wife, your dowry ‘greed on,And will you, nill you, I will marry you.Now Kate, I am a husband for your turn,For by this light, whereby I see thy beauty— Thy beauty that doth make me like thee well— 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 KateConformable as other household Kates.Here comes your father. Never make denial.I must and will have Katherine to my wife.”
(II.i.261–272)

The relationship between Petruccio and Katherine is one that generates unexpected humor many times throughout the play. The above words are the words of Petruccio, expressing his intention to “tame” his love interest. At the beginning of the play, Kate has an awful temper and terrible manners. She is absolutely against her expected gender roles and the way that she is supposed to aim to please her suitors and admire her father. Given her difficult and abrasive nature, Petruccio’s trying to mold her into a gentle maiden is often humorous.

For example, in Act II, Scene I, Petruccio and Katherine get into a battle of wits. The sharply call each other names and sarcastically make fun of each other until they’re blue in the face. When Katherine asks Petruccio where he learned all this “goodly speech” and when he says that it is from his “mother-wit” she responds “a witty mother! witless her son.” Petruccio also makes fun of her abbreviated name “Kate,” and adds insult to injury by calling her the “prettiest Kate in Christendom.”
Oddly enough, the culmination of all of these arguments is a marriage between the two of them. The play ends with Katherine’s expressing her complete turnaround and the new viewpoint that she has regarding men.