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Canterbury Tales Role Of Women Essay

1666 Words7 Pages

Do you know what women really want in life? Women today have control over their own life. In the Middle Ages, women wanted to have control over their own lives. The Canterbury
Tales is a frame story consisting of a General Prologue and several different tales written during the fourteenth century. Geoffrey Chaucer is famous for writing The Canterbury Tales because it describes many types of people living in the Middle Ages. Several of the characters described in this work are women. Some of these women are rebellious and seek for sovereignty over their lives. Through his description of the Wife in The General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales, as well as the “Knight’s Tale” and the “Wife of Bath’s Tale,” Chaucer suggests that, although many …show more content…

He is rewarded with having a young, beautiful, faithful wife. The old woman gets what she wants because she manipulates the knight into letting her choose how she wants to live. The Wife probably rebels against the traditional role of women because she is an independent business woman and capable of taking care of herself, which goes against the traditional view.
Chaucer believes the majority of women during the Middle Ages were submissive, but some of them were rebellious and seeking sovereignty over their lives. He shows this idea through the “Knight’s Tale” and the “Wife of Bath’s Tale.” During this time period, women were viewed as being under their husbands and always doing the housework. Emily shows that she is submissive by being an object of beauty and being a virgin, but doing what she is told.
Women soon realized that this was unfair and that they were not treated equally with men.
Eventually they started to rebel against the expectations that were set for them. “The Wife of
Bath’s Tale” demonstrates the Wife rebelling against the expectations because she is known for having a successful business and wanting to find sovereignty. Women in the Middle Ages

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