Many modern readers approach The Taming of the Shrew expecting a misogynistic comedy about a man “breaking” a difficult woman into submission. That certainly seems to be the play’s reputation.
Yet when we read the play slowly, aloud, and in community, a different picture began to emerge.
Petruchio never physically harms Katarina. The play contains plenty of threats, boasting, and comic exaggeration, but Petruchio’s methods are far stranger than modern summaries often suggest. Consider the wedding scene. Petruchio arrives dressed absurdly, and Katarina is mortified. She takes his appearance as a personal humiliation. Why should another person’s harmless foolishness upset her so deeply?
The same pattern appears throughout the play. Petruchio behaves outrageously, ignores social expectations, and refuses to care what others think. Again and again, Katarina is confronted with the gap between reality and appearance.
The sleep-deprivation scene is another example. We are often told that Petruchio cruelly makes sure Kate gets no sleep. But how does he do it? He bangs pots and pans, throws pillows around, and makes a tremendous racket. The result? NEITHER of them sleeps. Whatever hardship is endured, Petruchio endures it as well.
The same is true with the food. Petruchio rejects dishes that have been prepared for them, but from an early modern perspective this is more complicated than it first appears. Both Petruchio and Katarina are portrayed as choleric personalities. The foods being offered are “hot and dry,” precisely the sort of foods believed to aggravate that temperament. Petruchio insists that they BOTH fast. Notice you never seem him eat, either.
Meanwhile, it is worth asking who is actually portrayed as violent in the play. Before Petruchio ever appears, Katarina has tied up and struck her sister. She strikes servants. She is feared throughout the household. When asked to thank someone, she bluntly replies that she has never thanked anyone in her life; even two-year-olds have better manners. Shakespeare presents her as brilliant, witty, and spirited—but also deeply ill-tempered and unhappy.
What is striking is that Petruchio consistently speaks well of her. While others call her a fiend of hell, a devil, a wild cat, the veriest shrew of all, Petruchio praises her intelligence, her wit, her beauty, and her spirit. He is the only one to say kind things about Katarina in the play.
Even the notorious “sun and moon” scene is often misjudged. Modern audiences often describe it as gaslighting. But gaslighting depends upon making someone doubt reality. Petruchio knows perfectly well that Katarina does not believe the old man is a young woman. The joke only works because both of them know the truth. By this point, Katarina has learned that arguing every point is futile and often ridiculous. Rather than fighting over nonsense, she chooses to play along.
During the close read, Petruchio’s actions look less like cruelty and more like instruction. He teaches Katarina not to live under the tyranny of public opinion. He challenges her pride, her quick temper, and her tendency to take offense.
At the same time, Katarina challenges Petruchio. She is intelligent, strong-willed, and unwilling to be intimidated. She refuses to become a passive, obedient stereotype. Their relationship is a contest between equals.
By the end of the play, what emerges is not a broken woman, but a couple who have learned how to understand one another. They have become partners in a private game that few others can see.
One need not agree with every tactic Petruchio uses. But reading the play closely convinced us that The Taming of the Shrew is neither a brutal tale nor a simple exercise in misogyny. Rather, it is a surprisingly complicated love story about two difficult, lonely people who discover that they are perfectly matched.