Chanticleer And Wife Of Bath: An Analysis

The priest blames Pertelote for tempting and misleading Chanticleer, while the Wife of Bath asserts women’s authority over their husbands. By telling the relation between Chanticleer and Pertelote, the priest convicts predominance of man. Chanticleer has a nightmare of a beast who threatens to eat him. He is terribly scared and believes this a prediction of the future. When he tells Pertelote, his favorite wife, instead of consoling him, she laughs at him and claims that the dream is insignificant. He loves her so much that he believes her, and ignores the interpretation. Later Chanticleer is indeed attacked by a hungry fox. Chanticleer fails to recognize the importance of the dream because of Pertelote, so she actually puts him into danger.

After the fox captured him, the priest announces: “O woman’s counsel is often scold! O woman’s counsel brought us to woe”(226), while he is accusing women of bringing men downfall. When Chaucer writes “cold” and “woe”, he suggests that women’s advice is worthless and only causes troubles. This indicates that men should not follow women, but claim hierarchy over women. On the contrast, Wife of Bath intensely asserts women’s authority over men in a marriage, because they can also be strong and intellectual. In King Arthur’s day, the queen spares the knight from death, but asked him: what do women want most in the world? One old woman tells him: sovereignty over their husbands. All the ladies are satisfied with this answer. He must marry the old women. The knight hardly bears his ugly wife, who argues that she would be a pretty wife. Finally, he replies that she can choose whatever she wants, and the old woman becomes beautiful because she gets what she most desires, the freedom and authority to choose. Then they live a delightful life and have a long, contented marriage. The knight gives what the woman most wants to her in order to own a blissful