Gender and Nature in The Taming of the Shrew

When Kate first appears, the men around her describe her as a shrew—a woman who has violated her nature. She speaks when she should be silent, resists when she should obey, and refuses the role that her sex has supposedly assigned to her. The language used to describe her is visceral: she is harsh, unpleasant, fundamentally wrong. Yet the play never suggests that her shrewishness is truly her nature. Instead, her refusal seems rational given her circumstances. She is trapped by a system that treats her as merchandise, forced to wait for a husband while her younger sister (whom she loves) is locked away. Her anger is not madness but a reasonable response to injustice.

Petruchio’s theory of Kate’s nature is different. He believes—or claims to believe—that Kate’s outward harshness masks a gentle nature underneath. “I find report a very liar,” he says, and proceeds to act as though Kate is already the woman he wants her to be. He praises her silence as sweetness, her anger as spirited charm. This could be a deliberate deception designed to manipulate her, or it could be a genuine belief that people can be loved into being different. The ambiguity matters. If Petruchio is right, then Kate’s nature is not what she appears to be. If he is lying, then he is deliberately contradicting her perception of herself.

Kate’s final speech complicates any simple reading of her “nature.” She argues that women are naturally soft, weak, and unfit for the struggles of the world. Therefore, she concludes, women naturally should obey. But this speech is so over-the-top, so absolutely committed to the logic it presents, that it invites skepticism. Is Kate expressing her true beliefs about female nature, or is she performing what Petruchio wants to hear? The speech could be read as genuine conversion or as the most brilliant satire—a woman saying exactly what men want to hear while knowing full well that she is performing. The play does not tell us which reading is correct, which means both are possible.

Bianca and the Widow’s refusal to obey in the final scene suggests that female nature is not, in fact, naturally submissive. The Widow refuses her husband’s command with a single line: “She will not come. She bids you come to her.” This is not shrewishness but assertion—a woman choosing her own authority. The play seems to suggest that gender roles are not expressions of natural difference but rather performances that can be maintained or abandoned. Kate can be a shrew or an obedient wife because neither is her true nature. Both are choices, costumes, performances. What appears to be taming may be education, or transformation, or simple role-play. The play leaves us uncertain about whether women have a fixed nature at all, or whether nature itself is something that can be performed into being.