Chaucer’s Portrayal of the Wife of Bath The Wife of Bath presents the reader with a woman who compiles to the stereotypes corresponding with the negative misogyny of women during the medieval times. Wife of Bath is viewed the same as this stereotypical woman. Some can agree with Chaucer’s choice of these negative traits of The Wife of Bath, but the same conclusion is always met. Chaucer chooses to display the Wife of Bath as a misogynistic symbol of negative traits in order to use her as an object of mockery.
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 miller, in a drunken stupor, tells a tale of a love affair between a married woman and a younger man. The married woman, Alison, marries an older fellow and is then presented with the opportunity to cheat on him with a young scholar. Alison agrees and plays an awful trick on her husband so she and her new lover may be alone. The wife of bath is an incredible character in and of herself. The wife of bath starts with a long prologue, telling of her copious husbands and fondness of sex.
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 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).
In Chaucer’s Wife of Bath Tale, it repeatedly references the Wife’s five marriages that took place at the church door. However, priests were not able to allow the marriages of bigamists, so the marriages could not have realistically taken place at the church door. In addition, it also portrays the social status of widows. The representation of them shows the “anti feminist and antividual ideologies. The widows are the two mother-in-law in the Man of Law’s Tale.
The Wife of Bath’s strong will
This particular field of sports medicine has many job opportunities. Sports medicine careers offer a wide range of jobs that are placed all over the world. My freshman year I strained my hip flexors causing a visit to my local therapist to get help with recovery. Ever since then, I wanted to go into this field of work, and further my knowledge in this career. My favorite thing in the world is sports so I would love to stay close to athletics.
In the Tale, the Wife of Bath relaxes her perspectives of charity and love however proceeds with the subject of independence and power. Alisoun reworks the conventional story of the "Loathly Lady" with a positively women's activist turn, setting the witch in a place of control and demoting the Knight to a place of accommodation. Three of the wife's husbands were great and two were awful: the three were great, rich and old and they gave the Wife all their property, which brought about her withholding sex from them keeping in mind the end goal to get precisely what she needed. The Wife's fourth husband was a reveler and had a mistress as well as a wife.
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
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.
To me, both stories are very similar; tales where the “blind” husband is made a cuckold of by one of his close friends. The reason why the Wife of Bath’s prologue is last is because she seems so unhappy. The fact that her tale was about her wishes, proves that she is not content with her life. She has yet to be loved as more than just a pretty face or a wealthy noble. This tale is known for the “Dorigen’s Complaint,” where she talks about all of the women through history who have killed themselves when in a position where they might lose honor.
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.
A story that reflects a timeless issue of equality, morals, and lesson on what women really desire. The Wife of Bath by Geoffrey Chaucer is a story in The Canterbury Tales that expresses multiple moral lessons and an exciting dialogue that provides an entertaining story. The two stories that will be examined today are the “Pardoners Tale” and “The Wife of Bath”, after much evaluation I believe that “The Wife of Bath” is the better story. This is the better story because it’s more entertaining and also has more morals with better quality.
