A purely farcical character Essay

In this essay I intend to discuss the statement â€Å"Petruchio is a purely farcical character† and far I agree with it. I intend to explore Petruchios character further to determine whether he has other side to him apart from his comical side whether he is a purely farcical character. The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy, a farcical play with a lot of the humour being about the war between the sexes, which is shown in the major theme of marriage, and men trying to tame their women. Petruchio plays a big part in this with his wooing and marriage to Katherine. Petruchio is the main character in the play aswell as Katherine and he is also one of the main farcical characters who is often witty and farcical in his speeches is portrayed as a clown with a lot of comic scenes. They are quite slapstick humour as with his wedding outfit, his outfit shows him acting the clown. The description we get of his outfit is very comical and the image of the old horse. It is his wedding day and he doesn’t take it at all seriously. Another example of his humour is in Act 1 scene 2 where Petruchio and Grumio have a comic misunderstanding at the door. All these scenes are very silly and slapstick and show Petruchio as perhaps a purely farcical character, but there are other sides to him. Deceit is a major theme in The Taming of the Shrew, with many of the characters in disguise. Petruchio is one character who doesn’t swap identities with another character as we see with Lucentio and Tranio, but he does have a different disguise. He plays a role to tame Katherine and marry her so that he can be wealthy. He tricks her into believing he is a cruel man and he tells the audience this in one of his speeches (iv line 159-178). He tells them of his plans to deceive her and cure her of her shrewish ways and so she will become the dutiful wife and a lady. He does imply in this speech that he himself will also have to suffer in order to tame her (line 170-178) Petruchios character is quite deceitful and he does admit this to the audience. He is so deceitful he almost fools the audience into believing he is being himself. But he can’t be as he keeps informing them of his plans to deceive Katherine, so he obviously is not the man he portrays himself as. In the presence of his friends he is quite humorous as again with the scene where Petruchio and Grumio have the comical misunderstanding. With his friends he is more himself and is honest about what he wants, married, happy, and wealthy in Padua.