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The roles of women in the wife of bath
Characteristics of the wife of bath
The roles of women in the wife of bath
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Imagine being a jewish person in one of the deadliest wars. How would you survive? How would the news of the war affect you? For many people this isn’t just a question, it's a reality. Like in the book Maus where it follows Vladek and his attempt to keep him and his family alive during the Holocaust or in the poem “Often a Minute,” hearing the news about the Holocaust and seeing all the new people joining in.
This mockery shows stereotypes in a humorous way in order to attempt to change the way human nature is towards women. The first sentence of the Wife of Bath shows the reader that she relays on experience rather than listening and learning.
Chaucer characterizes The Wife of Bath as controlling and powerful. The Wife of Bath was a complete contradiction of the typical female, during this time. The average woman was submissive and reserved. Whereas, The Wife of Bath possessed character traits that one would associate with men. Chaucer emphasizes this trait by describing her in such ways one would describe a man.
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’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.
In “The Franklin’s Tale” by Geoffrey Chaucer, he employs the idea of gender norms to present a maistrie where Arveragus is dominant over Dorigen in their relationship. Chaucer entails this dominance over Dorigen when Arvegaus is described that “he wrought for his lady before she was won.” The fact that Chaucer describes Dorigen as being “won over” by Arvegaus denotes the dominance he has over her. Dorigen is being won over as if she is an object or more specifically a trophy that can be owned. This is done to the effect of emphasizing the idea that Dorigen, like most women during that time, are only property of their husbands.
While reading in the prologue to The Wife of Bath’s Tale, during the times when I am able to read the story fluently and without having to divert my attention to overcome the difference in spelling, grammar, language, etc., I do find aspects of Alison’s nature amusing. Her quick to judge mentality and solid beliefs are explained to all in such a remarkably unapologetic way, even when her actions or thoughts appear to be questionable, that she often comes across as ludicrously self righteous. Quite proud of her marital manipulation, or more specifically, her manipulation of all men, it is clear she relishes divulging all of her conniving stunts, as if each form of misery she inflicts upon her husband is a trophy worth taking down at any
The multiplicity of voices in The Canterbury Tales makes it difficult to impose a certain meaning on any individual voice or narrative, or to comment on authorial intent. Whilst we cannot pinpoint a solid ‘Chaucer-author’ voice, each of his pilgrim narrators have distinct styles and tones, holding vastly varying opinions, particularly in relation to gender and power. This is indeed the case with the Wife of Bath and the Clerk, whose narratives both address the power struggle between men and women. With examination of The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and The Clerk’s Tale, this essay will argue that power is a patriarchal possession, which manifests itself through the acts of gazing and glossing, and against which Alisoun and Griselda are contested. The Wife of Bath is in direct discourse with the notion of medieval antifeminism, which was ‘undoubtedly one of the loudest voices amongst
In “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”, Chaucer’s message was to teach men to respect women more and let women also have power in a relationship. The reasoning behind this message is because society in the medieval era did not respect women and Chaucer was attempting to teach that through poetry. The man in the story raped a woman and before being sent to death he was saved and given the opportunity to learn about what he did wrong. People don’t get second chances in real life, so writing a poem about the impossible and showing true enlightenment is Chaucer’s way of being a hero. The man learns from the old women about control and how he should love her and respect her for her and not her looks.
Gender role refers to those behaviors and attitudes that are considered to belong to one sex. Gender role is based on femininity and masculinity that differentiate women and men by giving men some roles and women which results to gender inequality. There some work in society that is regarded to belong to women such as cooking, taking care of children and other less important roles while men are given roles that makes them superior than women. Most of the gender roles associated with women makes them inferior and creates a room to be oppressed. Gender roles are constructed by society and attributed to women or men.
Chaucer also uses satire in a more comical way to illustrate how women can’t keep a secret. The Wife of Bath reveals this trait when she says “by heaven, we women can’t conceal a thing” (Chaucer 341), mocking the suggestion that women have an inability to keep a secret. Chaucer also makes fun of the knight’s condition using the irony of women being incapable of keeping a secret as the only thing that can save him. Mocking women and their incapability to not share private information only further reveals Chaucer’s satire.
The Wife of Bath begins to describe two of her husbands whom she thought were bad. First, her fourth husband, whom she married when still young, who liked to have fun, however he had a mistress. Remembering her wild youth, she feels nostalgic of how old she has become, but she says that she pays her loss of beauty no mind. She then confesses that she was his purgatory on Earth, always trying to make him jealous. He died while she was on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
In the fourteen century, men were always the superior, head of the household, the breadwinner, but women were always inferior, they would stay at home, do the house work, cook, and never would have a job. Well, times have changed. Women are reaching an equal status to men in political, social and economic matters It’s part of the idea called Feminism. In many ways the Wife of Bath displays many characteristic of women in the 21st century. Instead of being directed by men, she views herself as an independent person.
The Wife of Bath: An Analysis of Her Life and Her Tale The Wife of Bath’s Prologue stays consistent with the facts that experience is better than the societal norms, specifically those instilled by the church leadership. Chaucer uses the Wife of Bath to display the insanity of the church, but through switching and amplifying their view of men and chastity onto the opposite gender. The church doctrine at the time held celibacy in an idolized manner, forgetting the inability for humans to ever reach perfection, or live up to this standard. They also did not hold women in a high regard at all, again this is where Chaucer flips the role, as the Wife of Bath describes her five marriages in her prologue, essentially describing each as a conquest, where the result is her having all control.
