Shakespeare uses disguises to give characters the chance to act different from who they really are. This helps us to see that characters can be more than what they seem. Take Tranio for instance, he is the servant of Lucentio, they are friends and Lucentio trusts Tranio enough to give him his identity, after he sees Bianca and falls in love with her. So Tranio takes over Lucentio's identity, and you would not think that the servant turned master could act so well and make smart decisions that really helped Lucentio, but Tranio is able to do just that. He also grew quite bold in his portrayal of Lucentio because he stood up to his original master, Vincentio, and pretended he did not know him, which could really have gotten Vincentio into a lot of trouble had Lucentio and Bianca shown up. Another example of this would be Vincentio, the Pedant, claiming to be the father of Lucentio, Tranio. He almost got the real Vincentio in trouble with the local authorities because they began to cause a scene and the authorities were about to intervene when the true story came to light. This is just one of the many ways that Shakespeare used disguises in this play. There are two reasons why Shakespeare used disguises, one is to show comedy and to add depth to the play and the second is to give the audience a different perspective on the characters in the play.
             The first disguise that we saw in The Taming of the Shrew was Lucentio telling Tranio to become Lucentio. This happened when Lucentio saw Bianca and fell in love with her. The reason they made the switch was to allow Lucentio to bypass all of the other suitors and be able to pine for Bianca privately. There were three reasons why Tranio had to become Lucentio, one they had to have a Lucentio to arrive in Padua to go the school there and to keep up appearances, the second reason was to let Bianca know publicly that he wanted to marry her, and the third
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