Hortensio forswears Bianca and marries a wealthy widow. To tame her, he is going unto the taming-school, where Petruchio is the master “That teacheth tricks eleven and twenty long, / To tame a shrew and charm her chattering tongue” (4.2.57-8). Ann Thompson hints that The Taming of the Shrew is “normally” read and performed as “a piece of bluff brutality in which a man marries a spirited woman in order to torture and humiliate her.” Albert Bermel observes that by “calmness, acts of unpredictability, and fulsome compliments besides mental punishment, frustration, hunger, and mockery,” Petruchio relentlessly ill-treats Kate in his scruffy mansion by putting her through “the affective mill.” Irving Ribner stresses that Petruchio's taming course develops into “a denial of truth and a destruction of that power of reason which separates man and woman from the lower animals,” and that its final effect is “to reduce the tamed wife to the level of an animal.” The tricks taught in his taming-school, in short, are meant to confuse the shrew about appearance and reality, so that she accepts falsehoods as truth and is ultimately reduced to the level of an animal in her reasoning. In the last scene, the Widow and Bianca turn out to be real shrews, while Kate is “the trained hawk or dog of her master,” stooping obsequiously to Petruchio's whistle. Michael Billington recommends that The Taming of the Shrew “be put back firmly and squarely on the shelf.” The taming-school should be officially closed down for good.