Petruchio

Play

The Taming of the Shrew

Summary

Petruchio is the boisterous, self-confident gentleman from Verona who arrives in Padua explicitly seeking a wealthy wife. He woos and wins Katherina through a deliberate campaign of psychological reversal — arriving late to their wedding in absurd dress, starving her of food and sleep, and contradicting every perception she expresses — until she either genuinely submits or learns to perform submission as a survival strategy.

Notable Quotations

"I come to wive it wealthily in Padua; / If wealthily, then happily in Padua." *(1.2)*

"Say that she rail; why then I'll tell her plain / She sings as sweetly as a nightingale." *(2.1)*

"Thus have I politicly begun my reign, / And 'tis my hope to end successfully." *(4.1)*

Cross-references

• The Taming of the Shrew — the play
• Comedies
• character_katherina — his "shrew" wife and sparring partner
• character_grumio — his comic servant
• character_hortensio — his old friend from Verona