Bianca: The Obedient Sister Who Is Not Obedient

Bianca is introduced as the opposite of Katharina: gentle, modest, silent when her father commands it. Three men compete for her simultaneously, all willing to adopt false identities and pay for fake tutors just to get near her. Her father adores her. She is, apparently, everything a young woman in Padua is supposed to be.

Look more carefully and the picture is more complicated. She chooses Lucentio (the man disguised as her Latin tutor) over Gremio and Hortensio, and she makes that choice herself, against what might be her father's preference. In Act 3 Scene 1 she tells both her 'tutors' that she will set her own study timetable and they can wait. She is not as biddable as she appears.

The play's final scene turns on this. Petruchio bets that Katharina will come when called. Bianca refuses, she is busy. Lucentio loses the wager. The woman who spent the whole play performing sweetness has no interest in performing it now that she is safely married. Katharina, meanwhile, gives the obedience speech. The play quietly reverses their roles at the end.