Chaucer's Wife of Bath is one of the most amazing characters in English Literature. She is a strong, clever, independent woman who knows what she likes and usually gets it. She is lusty and not shy about it. She exposes and mocks misogyny in various ways, showing just how misogynistic medieval society was. However, although her strong willed nature and mockery of this patriarchy is apparent, as an audience we still remain confused, and discover aspects of her characteristics and journey, which show that perhaps she is still trapped in this ideal male dominated world. The Wife of Bath, Alison is represented as a rare and unique woman in the initial portrayal of her in the prologue, but at the end of her prologue, the Wife of Bath succumbs to the pressure of society, conforms and becomes the medieval wife.…
This interpretation is weakened by the fact that the Wife of Bath herself conforms to a number of these misogynist and misogamist (antimarriage) stereotypes. For example, she describes herself as sexually voracious but at the same time as someone who only has sex to get money, thereby combining two contradictory stereotypes. She also describes how she dominated her husband, playing on a fear that was common to men, as the Pardoner’s nervous interjection reveals. Despite their contradictions, all of these ideas about…
I usually look at the picture in the class and the worksheet for any hint of an answer to our group work. The pictures of Queen Elizabeth help remind us that she too was once like us, young and lively. Through this, we can related to her as a young adult, rather than an old political figure we see her as today.…
When writing, authors often know how they want to portray their characters, like if they want the person to stand for a greater meaning or to exist simply for ridicule. But some authors fall short of this mark and create wishy-washy figures that neither prove nor disprove an idea. This is the case with Chaucer and his portrayal of the Wife of Bath. The writer neither ridicules the woman for her multiple marriages nor does he use her to ridicule the gender norms of the time.…
The titular character in Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale” challenges medieval patriarchy in an attempt to denounce the sexist ideals at the time. However, the Wife of Bath herself is not a flawless example of feminism.…
One of the stereotypes that existed during this time regarding woman was their inability to understand the meanings within the bible. Woman were also seen as gold-diggers, only marrying for money. They believed that if woman were to be educated about the bible, they would use it to justify their sins. The Wife of Bath’s confirms this by saying, “where can you say, in any kind of age, that our high God has forbidden marriage expressly, in what word? I pray, tell me. Or where did he command virginity?” ( ). The Wife of Bath’s confirms every stereotype at one point, however, she also challenges them. By using passages from the bible she and she own experiences she challenges these stereotypes.…
In the journey of Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer paints a vivid image of the medieval world. He brings forth three prominent concepts in the General Prologue, Pardoner's Prologue and Tale, and The Wife of Bath’s Tale. All tales satirically drenched with persuasive ideas, most would agree that his iconoclastic stories are dangerous for introducing aloud a different view on the church, gender relations and economic divisions. Creating doubt against the morals and true intentions of the church, bringing to light the inequality between genders and proposing a division between economic classes.…
When studying the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Wife of Bath’s Tale, both coming from the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, you see a common theme of feminism. Also, you get a good sense of the of the anti feminist cultural norms and ideas regarding women in the medieval era. Alisoun, The Wife of Bath, focuses most upon the common stereotypes of women. These stereotypes include the idea that women only marry into money in order to live a lavish lifestyle off of their husband’s income as well as the belief that women will never stop talking to their husbands. Stemming from this, the common belief among men was that if you were to get married, it would ruin your chances of success later in life. The Wife of Bath opposed all of these…
During the Middle Ages, men are known to have more power than women, controlling them and taking advantage over them. Women do not have the same rights as men and they are treated differently. Men are superior while women are inferior. Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales changes the society of the Middle Age completely in The Wife of Bath. In The Wife of Bath, the main character of this tale, or the one telling this tale, is a woman, the Dame Alice. The Dame Alice tells her tale as if she has nothing to hide and she explains the role of women in her tale and she explains her tale, thus, becoming the first feminist character in Western Literature.…
In the day of Geoffrey Chaucer, there was a set philosophy known as the Patriarchy. Also, there was a division of the classes, such as: the poor people, who couldn’t afford a simple meal; the middle class, who had a way of making ends meet, but only to a certain extent, and the upper lords and kings, who were seen as better than the people previously stated. Again, in “Canterbury Tales,” Chaucer created a woman, known as the wife of bath, who explicates the details about her own life, along with a long winded story. Firstly, within the story she relays, the knight must marry an elder woman, for she had saved his life. The woman hates the idea of the knight being so arrogant about his stature, and she attacks his nobility. Also, the wife of bath critiques the way the knight profiles the woman by her poverty. Lastly, the old woman has a brief…
In “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”, Chaucer promotes a modern feministic perspective as he implements…
Chaucer’s Critique of Medieval Society As The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer progresses, the tales often critique one's sexual past while judging how they act through the tales, along with their gender. As karma and greed also have an extremely strong presence in the “Reeve’s and Pardoner’s tales” they both value money over the people that are important in their lives. The Wife of Bath critiques every aspect of male superiority as she is an extremely enthusiastic "feminist", that defends her side through finding the numerous amount of flaws in others arguments. This not only creates bad opposing arguments, but also helps her build a stronger argument. Her argument consists of why females should not be valued based on how many guys…
This has been perpetuated by the ideology that women are naturally submissive, pious, and gentle creatures. “The Cult of Womanhood” describes this ideology by placing men and women into two “spheres” – not unlike men are from Mars, women are from Venus. (reference here) The public sphere involves business and public life, ruthless and uncaring. This sphere is reserved for men. The other sphere, the private sphere, is gentle, nurturing, and devoted to familial and religious matters. When a women steps outside this sphere, she is reviled and, what some sexist journalists have called her, a “mental hermaphrodite.” The Wife of Bath, Alyson, one of the traveling characters in Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” is a prime example of a complex, independent woman in literature, who by Chaucer’s pen, is an immoral being. GoodAlyson explains her quintet of marriages, going into detail about how she controlled, lied, and manipulated all of her husbands until their deaths. She says, “Of tribulacion in marriage, of which I am expert in al myn age. This is to seyn, myself have been the whippe.” (III.179-181) ExcellentShe is seen as a sexually dominant man-hater, instead of a headstrong, vivacious…
These days, both men and women have equal power, but in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, one noble knight was forced to learn about submission to a woman the arduous way in The Wife of Bath’s Tale of the frame story.…
The Wife of Bath uses reasoning and logic to justify that it should not be looked down upon for a woman to have multiple marriages throughout her lifetime. Allison, the Wife of Bath, argues that God “bade us all to wax and multiply” (277). Essentially, Allison is claiming that God is the controller of the universe and by marrying multiple men she is simply following his instruction. In addition, the Wife of Bath disputes that there is a double standard about having several marriages. She reasons that while women are looked down upon for having multiple marriages, men throughout history have often married many women and are not shamed. For example, she envies King Solomon for the number of women he had slept with and married. Alison references a counter- point that the Apostle made in which he recommends that women maintain their virginity. She makes the logical point that if all women were abstinent, there would be no one to create more virgins. Her point is made using deductive reasoning because her logic is derived from the fact that without reproduction, the population would die out. Alison claims that St. Paul advocated virginity, but he did not make it an obligation. In addition, The Wife of Bath discusses that God would not have molded the female and male genitals to be so perfectly fit for one another if they were not meant to be used in harmony. She is reasoning that God gave men and women genitals to use them, and doing so should be endorsed rather than disgraced. The counter- argument to her theory is that nuns and priests commonly argue that genitals are for business rather than pleasure. She then states that it is stated “in books: ‘A man must yield his wife her debt’” (280). This quote portrays that it is a man’s duty to satisfy his woman in bed. The Wife of Bath uses this quote to prove that using genitals should not be used strictly for “the purguration of urine” and “to know a male from a female” (279).…