he playis not real thus making all events in the play false realities. Almost all characters in the play take on dentities other than their own at some point of time during the play. Sly as a king, Tranio as Lucentio, Lucentio as Cambio, Hortensio as Litio and the pedant as Vicentio are all examples of this. Another example of this is Katherine as an obedient wife. In The Taming Of The Shrew, courtship and marriage are not so much the result of love but rather an institutionof society that people are expected to take part in. As a result of the removal of romance from marriage, suitors are judged, not by their love for a woman, but by how well they can provide for her. All suitors compare the dowry each can bring to the marriage and the one with the most to offer 'wins' the woman's hand in marriage. This competition for marriage is like a game to the characters of the play. While discussing the courtship of Bianca with Gremio,Hortensio says "He that runs fastest gets The ring" (Act I, scene i, l. 140-141) likening receiving permission to wed Bianca to winning a race. In the game, however, women aretreated like objects that can be bought and sold rather than as human beings. This is expected since the society is a patriarchal one. For example, Lucentio, Tranio andPetruchio are all defined with reference to their fathers and all the elderly authority figures, like Baptista and Vicentio, are men. The taming of Katherine is not a women's shrewishness being cured as much as it is a woman being taught the rules of the 'patriarchal game'. Katherine haslearned how to be assertive and with this knowledge is able to control men, and a woman controlling a man is considered 'against the rules' of the game. The play ends with Katherine proving that she is truly cured of her 'shrewishness' and is the most obedient of the three newlywed wives at the end of the play. This is demonstrated in her soliloquy when she lectures the other wives on the prop...
