Towards the conclusion of any Shakespearean comedy comes a wedding. Unique to this play the wedding is between characters that are in a subplot to the script rather than the main plot that involves Katherine and Petruchio. After the nuptials among Bianca and Lucentio were said the banquet that followed was held at his house in the city. As the festivity occurred the three newly married man Petruchio, Lucentio, and Hortensio purpose a bet twenty crowns that if they send a servant to fetch their wives, their wife would arrive first. The idea of the bet stems from whoever's wife is the most obedient to their husband would drop what they were doing to come to his aide the quickest. Unforeseen by the other husbands and others in the banquet hall
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Her speech talks about the women has a subdominant status in a relationship and that her sole responsibility is to the pleasing of her husband. She then recants her past comments about marriage, saying it was foolish or her to challenge the man’s authority. After she gives her voice on the manner, her and Petruchio exit the banquet. Her speech quite literally suggests to the readers that her treatment from Petruchio has altered her to mentality into a more conforming one. According to Sloan, “The couple exits triumphantly, leaving disagreement as to how to interpret their performance. Has Petruchio, as Hortensio insists, ‘tamed a curst shrew?’ Lucentio's skeptical retort, "'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so" (5.2.193), suggests that Katherine's "taming,"...is but an act.” (Sloan). Katherine’s speech does leave the characters that listened in suspension on whether or not she has actually changed or whether it was all an act. If her extended speech was given as an ironic statement, it is conceivable that Petruchio was involved in the delivering of the speech. Petruchio’s involvement could have been the reason why he is so ready to wager the amount of his original dowery. This interpretation of Katherine's final speech would fit in line with the subtle hints we get as readers that there is a complex relationship between the two shrewish
Her speech talks about the women has a subdominant status in a relationship and that her sole responsibility is to the pleasing of her husband. She then recants her past comments about marriage, saying it was foolish or her to challenge the man’s authority. After she gives her voice on the manner, her and Petruchio exit the banquet. Her speech quite literally suggests to the readers that her treatment from Petruchio has altered her to mentality into a more conforming one. According to Sloan, “The couple exits triumphantly, leaving disagreement as to how to interpret their performance. Has Petruchio, as Hortensio insists, ‘tamed a curst shrew?’ Lucentio's skeptical retort, "'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so" (5.2.193), suggests that Katherine's "taming,"...is but an act.” (Sloan). Katherine’s speech does leave the characters that listened in suspension on whether or not she has actually changed or whether it was all an act. If her extended speech was given as an ironic statement, it is conceivable that Petruchio was involved in the delivering of the speech. Petruchio’s involvement could have been the reason why he is so ready to wager the amount of his original dowery. This interpretation of Katherine's final speech would fit in line with the subtle hints we get as readers that there is a complex relationship between the two shrewish