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The features of wife of bath's tale
Feminism in wife of bath's tale
The proto feminist readings of the wife of bath prologue
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There are many inferences about the Wife of Bath throughout this story. With inferences such as the wife doesn't find women trustworthy can be showed with examples from the text. "yet out it must, no secret can we hide" (l.124). In this quote she is explaining a tale of a man trusting a women with a secret and then the women not being able to keep the secret and having to tell it to a body of water.
In the Wife of Bath’s, she broke all the stereotypes Medieval society thought a wife is. She tells the people that being married intercourse is part of marriage and God has made privates parts to make generations, not to waste in doing nothing. Being categorized or stereotyped in Medieval society was hard for married women in the Medieval era because often they were portrayed as disloyal, uncontrolled sexual beasts because of the lack of marriage
The Wife of Bath and her tale are the most similar out of all the tales because they both share a domineering outlook over others. In the general prologue she is told to have had five husbands and is described as a looker, “Her face was bold and handsome and ruddy,” (Chaucer 39). In her prologue she goes more in depth of her time spent with her five husbands. Wife of Bath talks most about how she gains control over her husbands. For instance, her fifth husband was the controlling force in their marriage until he made the mistake of hitting her and telling her he would do anything to keep her with him and said, “My own true wife, do as you wish for the rest of your life…” (335).
The Wife of Bath attempts to spiritually justify own lust and desire by comparing herself with men’s ability and stance in medieval era. In the medieval ages, the married men could have sexual affairs with most women while married women were not allowed to have any sexual relations. She sees sexuality as God given gift to men and women equally, so she refuses to be condemned for her lusts and desires. However, for Margery Kempe, abstain from sexual desires is the perfect model, and connection with God converts lost chastity for an
The Wife of Bath’s behaviors are questionable but are inherently aided by the social injustices that face women of this time period. The Wife of Bath discloses that for her first three marriages she sought out older wealthy men for sex and money. Her intentions included making her husbands fall in love with her and then making them have enormous amounts of sex until they die. In addition, the wife elaborates on her occasional tumultuous tirades of accusing her husbands of being unfaithful to her. Her uproars chided her husbands into persistently obliging into her every request.
The Canterbury Tales is a book filled with different tales, 29 stories to be exact. These tales are all different and have their own storyline. The Wife of Bath being one of these. It all begins with a knight who sexually assaults a young lady and for this event is told to find what it is that women most desire. Desperate in finding the answer, he makes a deal with an old lady he encounters to get his answer in exchange of doing whatever the old lady may please.
“The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale” that we have been studying consists of several claims and arguments. Some of them are marriage is not a sin, women and men are equal, a wife should have the control over her husband, the husband should obey and follow his wife’s orders, and those men who did not follow the rule have to be punished by god. However, not all of the arguments are present in both the prologue and the tale. The main argument, which is present in both the prologue and the tale, is that a wife should be incharge in relationship and take control over her husband. At the same time, the husband should love and obey his wife by following her orders.
That being said, there are a wide variety of parallels that can be drawn between the Wife of Bath’s prologue and tale. For example, her experiences with her aged and meek husbands, her abusive husband, and her subconscious fears about aging can all be depicted through her tale. Most importantly, The Wife of
After having read some sources that discuss the Lady of Bath’s prologue and tale, it seems that there may be more to the Lady of Bath than meets the eye. She may be as narcissistic and vindictive as she seems reading through the tale at first glance, but instead she is a woman who has struggled through life by being married for the first time by the age of 12. Sylvester argues that she may not necessarily have wanted to be married so young but instead because she was forced into it she brings out
Her theme displays a sense of wickedness and sexual prowess to get her needs met. We know from account that she has 5 husbands and was married at the age of twelve which is bizarre. She does claim that it isn’t something regular and she questions God’s motives and the motives of her reasons for marriage. Stating that she had three “good husbands” and two “bad husbands” all of which she evilly took advantage of for her own personal satisfaction. I think the monstrous theme to point out would be just the Wife of Bath.
In the book of Wife of Bath’s Tale, Geoffrey Chaucer shows the role of a woman being weak creatures while men are economically powerful and educated. Women are seen as inheritor of eve and thus causes
“God has given women by nature deceit, weeping, and spinning, as long as they live” (Chaucer, 201). The Wife of Bath believes that experience is the greatest authority, and since she has been married five times, she certainly considers herself an authority on the. It is ironic to see the even though is not religious but, she uses the Bible as justification to pardon her behavior. She is not ashamed of her having six different husbands and being sexually active for pleasure, another thing that was frowned upon: fornication. To most people of this time, sex was strictly for reproduction.
The Wife of Bath is displayed as strong, independent, and unconcerned with any social standards she may or may not be held to. When explaining the Wife of Bath Chaucer details,“Bold was her face, and handsome; florid too. She had been respectable all her life, And five times married, that’s to say in church, Not counting other loves she’d had in youth”(Chaucer 14). Multiple clothing items add onto her attitude of self-determination and power, as she is described as wearing a hat that resembled a shield, and sharp spurs on her feet (Chaucer 15). With the Wife of Bath being described as a mistress with multiple husbands, one would expect her to be characterized as a scheming harlot that men should be wary of (as was common in medieval misogynist tales).
Throughout her introduction of the tale, and the story itself, we see the Wife of Bath as an experienced, intellectual woman, who despite living in a world of patriarchal power, provides for herself financially, emotionally, and physically. As a feminist icon, she confronts serious social issues that illustrate the subjugation women faced. During her prologue and her tale, it is very clear that the Wife of Bath is proud and not ashamed of her sexuality. She views sex as a good ideal, and argues it, using references from the Bible, that God’s intentions
According to William E. Mead ‘the evils of matrimony, […], were a favourite theme in the Middle Ages’ . This means that marriage was a recurring topic and especially marriages that had trials and problems to overcome. Indeed, in the Canterbury Tales Chaucer uses for some of his tales the setting of marriage. In this essay, the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and the Franklin’s Tale will be used to demonstrate how Chaucer represented marriage and what possible functions could it have. With functions I mean in the texts as part of the plot as well as how marriage functions as a plot device.
