The Taming of the Shrew Bianca Quotes

Baptista and Lucentio are in for quite a surprise when they learn that Bianca is not as sweet and silent as she appeared to be. Here, Bianca plays off of Gremio's comment that the wedding guests are butting heads (bickering and insulting one another). Bianca jumps in and calls Gremio a horned animal (that's code for "cuckold" – a man who is cheated on by his wife). It turns out, though, that Bianca's husband is the chump because he's married to a shrew. In a way, Kate is vindicated. On the other hand, the overall assertion doesn't change – any woman who talks like a man is a "shrew."

Bianca's insistence that she is no mere schoolboy asserts her control over her own education and also over her relationship with men. We don't know it yet, but at this moment in the play, Bianca is aware that her "tutors" (at least Lucentio anyway) are actually suitors.

Gremio's complaint that Bianca is penned up and punished for Kate's shrewish behavior (see 1.1.3) is manifested on stage in a very literal and comedic representation of sibling rivalry. We think this moment is pretty funny, especially because Shakespeare seems to mock Gremio's earlier comment about Bianca. Still, there's something disturbing about an image of a woman bound by her own sister and we're reminded that women often inflict violence on one another in a twisted imitation of patriarchal control. (See, this is what we mean when we say that the play is often simultaneously humorous and dark.)