Lucentio

648 Words2 Pages

He is rich, madly in love, and willing to do anything to get what he wants; he is Lucentio. Lucentio is one of the main characters of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. His role in the play begins as he arrives in Padua, Italy as a rich student with the intent of furthering his education at a university in Padua. Mind you, Lucentio is accompanied by his servant Tranio who reminds him to enjoy life and not to exclusively focus on his studies. However, this conversation is abruptly interrupted by a boisterous crowd containing Baptista Minola and his alluring daughter Bianca. Upon seeing Bianca, Lucentio proclaims, “Tranio, I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio, if I achieve not this young modest girl. (Act 1, Scene 1)” This ultimately leads to Lucentio’s passionate pursuit of Bianca.
In order to achieve his goal of wooing Bianca, Lucentio decides to give up his studies and to disguise himself as Cambio, a tutor that wishes to educate Bianca. In doing so, he also has Tranio disguise himself as Lucentio. Once Lucentio’s wish to educate Bianca is granted he begins to win Bianca’s heart as Cambio. This is effortless for Lucentio because even without the guise of an affluent young man he is still attractive and fascinating, well to Bianca anyway. Furthermore, Bianca does not even express any concern in the fact that Lucentio portrayed himself as someone completely different while he was around her. Nonetheless, at the end of the play Lucentio expresses his wishes to privately marry which mostly likely will happen.
Lucentio seems to be one of the more likable characters in The Taming of the Shrew, despite the fact that he is an endlessly rich and somewhat desperate sounding bachelor. However, Lucentio is good natured in his pursuit...

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... his money. However, he does not seem concerned with the loss of wealth, yet Bianca is slightly irate with the men’s expectation of subservience.
Lucentio is the most genuine character in The Taming of the Shrew. He only acts out of love and is not even interested in marrying into even more wealth, and he even gives up his disguise for the good of his father, even though this action could have negatively affected his relationship with Baptista. When he disguises himself as Cambio he simply acts himself around Bianca and she ends up loving him for who he is. Without Lucentio, The Taming of the Shrew would lack a truly likable suitor that is driven by love and not greed. Lucentio allows the audience to find even more humor in Katherine and Petruchio’s relationship as Lucentio and Bianca truly love each other, while it seems Katherine is forced into loving Petruchio.

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