meal, to assert her observations about whether the sun is the moon or the moon the sun, is that he is in love with her. The reasons for his infatuation may seem confusing, since Kate is so deliberately unpleasant to everybody, including Petruchio, before and after the marriage. But a careful review of the text shows that Petruchio, who is a rich man and determined to get even richer by way of a proper match, is quite self-possessed and confident of his unique ability to be the marital equal of a shrew whose reputation precedes her. "I tell you, father, / I am as peremptory as she proud-minded; / And where two raging fires meet together / They do consume the thing that feeds their fury" (II.i). To put it another way, from the outset Petruchio has no interest in marrying an ordinary girl. Rather, he is intrigued by the possibility of a wife with spirit, confidently anticipating that he can manipulate her into being intrigued by him. Webster cites "the full-strength, flaunting, undimmed vitality of his two protagonists" (139), and elsewhere adds that "Petruchio could never have endured a tame wife" (141). This explains his intention to "woo her with some spirit when she comes. / Say that she rail; why then I'll tell her plain /She sings as sweetly as a nightingale" (II.i).
From a social point of view, Kate is powerless to object to the marriage. "I must, forsooth, be forced / To give my hand opposed against my heart / Unto a mad-brain rudesby" (III.ii), she says, partly in deference to her father and partly in deference to Bianca's earnest and conventional wish to wed. On the other hand, as Webster suggests, the comic tone of the entire play depends partly on the way in which the initial meeting of Kate and Petruchio is portrayed. In other words, implicit in the sharp words between them and Petruchio's determination to play an extended practical joke on Kate is that it has been love at first sight for them both.
Suppose that the two...