Power and Submission in The Taming of the Shrew

Kate sits in Petruchio’s house, starving, without sleep, watching him praise burnt meat as perfect. “The more my wrong, the more his spite appears,” she says, and in that moment the play’s central question crystallizes: Is he breaking her will, or is something else happening? Petruchio’s method is systematic cruelty—withholding food, sleep, and comfort—but framed as perfect love. He tells her “I do it under name of perfect love,” which could mean he is deceiving her, or it could mean he genuinely believes that denying her bodily comfort is a form of care. The play hovers between these readings without settling on either.

The opening conflict is stark: Kate refuses to obey her father, speaks her mind freely, and sees marriage as a trap set by men who want to control women. Her resistance is not presented as shrewishness but as rational refusal of an unjust system. By contrast, Bianca is praised for her “mild behaviour and sobriety,” yet she too is trapped—forced to wait for a husband while her sister, against her will, must marry first. The play’s early acts suggest that power flows one direction: from fathers to daughters, from husbands to wives. Even Lucentio, in love with Bianca, must disguise himself to gain access to her. No one has power except those with money and male status.

Yet by the middle of the play, the power dynamics begin to shift in unexpected ways. Kate, subjected to Petruchio’s systematic denial, begins to agree with his inversions. She calls the sun the moon. She embraces his version of reality. This could be read as complete submission—she has been broken and remade in his image. But it could also be read as Kate recognizing a game and deciding to play it better. By joining his performance, she gains a kind of power. She and Petruchio exit together, laughing, conspirators against everyone else. The wager at the end—which wife is most obedient—is won by Kate, and won so decisively that she seems to be in control of the moment.

Yet the play’s final image is troubling precisely because it is ambiguous. Kate’s speech on wifely obedience is long, serious, and could be sincere. Or it could be the most brilliant performance of submission ever delivered, one so convincing that she wins the wager and secures her position. Bianca and the Widow rebel at the same moment, suggesting that submission was always a choice, never inevitable. The play does not tell us whether Kate has internalized Petruchio’s vision of marriage or whether she has learned that performing agreement gives her more agency than fighting ever did. What it does say is that power in this world is negotiated through performance, and that submission and authority are never as stable as they first appear.