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The Wife Of Bath's Tale Analysis

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In Chaucer’s, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” we as readers get to experience the story of a Knight’s journey to find the answer to the question: What is it that every woman desires? The Knight is given the task by the queen with permission from her husband. This story is told by the Wife of Bath who is introduced to us in “The General Prologue” by Chaucer. In the prologue we get insight as to who the Wife of Bath is by her experiences as a woman who has been married five times and how she wants authority over her husbands. Throughout the story of “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” we see the recurring theme of power; whether it is women’s power over their husbands, the old woman’s power over the knight, or the handing over of power to man. In “The General …show more content…

There are many similarities between the wife and the old woman in their sense of humor in the bedroom and in marriage. For example, the Wife would tease her husbands in bed, she would refuse intimacy if he did not give her money. She tells the pilgrims, “that each of them was very blissful and eager to bring me gay things from the fair. They were very glad when I spoke to them pleasantly, for, God knows it, I cruelly scolded them” (The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, Line 220). When she mentions how crude she was to her husband’s we can see the similarities between her and the old woman, for in her tale when the old woman is in bed with the knight she teases him by saying, “Does every knight behave thus with his wife as you do?” (The Wife of Bath’s Tale, Line 1088). The old woman begs the question of her husband that if he had the choice, “to have me ugly and old until I die, and to be to you a true, humble wife, and never displease you in all my life, or else you will have me young and fair, and take your chances of the crowd” she tells him to choose and he says to choose whichever shall be most pleasing to her (The Wife of Bath’s Tale …show more content…

Women are granted authority many times throughout the tale and by the Wife requiring dominance over her multiple husbands in order to be satisfied in their marriage. There is an underlying theme of feminism throughout the work that reveals itself by asking the question what it is that women really desire. As readers we can see that the answer is sovereignty over their husbands but that begs the questions is it power over them or just the husbands’ willingness to yield sovereignty to their

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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.

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249 Words | 1 Pages

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.

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The Wife of Bath believed that women should take mastery over their men (Pg. 914). She had five husbands and thought she knew how to control men. She also believed that experience, not authority by gender, should be respected in society. She also believed that members of the church who could not marry or consummate, knew less of sex and therefore, not as experienced or educated on sexuality as she.

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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

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399 Words | 2 Pages

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).

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206 Words | 1 Pages

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.

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945 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout the Canterbury Tales, by Jeffrey Chaucer, many characters have been satirized to point out the issues of everyday society, and it is evident that the tales are able to connect with not only the past but the present as well. Furthermore, Chaucer utilizes the tales as a tool to fully characterize and detail the characters of the novel. In the Wife of Bath’s prologue, it is evident that Dame Allison is an individual who is portrayed as a negative character by Chaucer as she is revealed as someone who dominates men to obtain whatever she desires. Thus, the tale she recites is perfectly suited for her because it perfectly illustrates how women have power over their husbands and are able to achieve sovereignty over them. This relates

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1028 Words | 5 Pages

“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.

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In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer’s tone and description of her was negative. She “had gap teeth, set widely, truth to say” (135). To have this appearance was to be very bold and was far from the norm. The Wife of Bath did not conform to beauty standards of the Medieval Ages, showing that she is not proprietous. She was “a worthy woman all of her life, what’s more she’d have five husbands, all at the church door” (135).

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Beowulf and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” are both narratives in which gender acts as an important theme within their individual communities; both have underlying meanings when it comes to defining what the role men and women in a good community should be. Or in other words, both stories paint a vivid picture of the role of women during the medieval time period, by suggesting that one gender had more power over another. However, these two narratives take alternative paths when expressing their views; Beowulf conveys its message through what is missing, while “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” incorporates satire and uses explicit narrative when telling the experience of a woman that is highly different from other women in her time. Furthermore, another difference that is appealing to the reader’s eyes, besides the way the two narratives reflect to women’s role in medieval times, is that men become the hero in Beowulf, while “the wife”, so a woman, becomes the authority figure in the story of “The Wife of Bath’s Tale.” I want to first introduce the two main differences between the two narratives and then I will explain how regardless of the differences, both of these narratives’ main goal is to show that women had less power and a good community back that time was male dominated.

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1150 Words | 5 Pages

Imagery is an indispensable literal device in literary world. A lot of poems or novels use imagery to describe a vivid image. It is figurative language which is the description about five sense: touch, hear, smell, taste, and touch. It can also contain some emotion or movement. Two tales: the Wife of Bath’s Tale and the Pardoner’s Tale are both written by Geoffrey Chaucer, who is a poet in medieval society.

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This, once more, points towards an attitude that judges women for their sexual output and attractiveness alone. The old woman would be incapable of the two things her sex is desired for; procreation, and the sexual pleasure this would require. She uses the rhetoric of reason to get her young husband to love her, yet her premise rests on her position as someone who has lost beauty and is placed at disadvantage. The old woman begins to ‘selle’ her virtues of faithfulness , and in this she commoditises her identity and establishes once more the hierarchy of husband and wife; and the position of the wife as someone inferior to her

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775 Words | 4 Pages

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

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1060 Words | 5 Pages

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.

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1052 Words | 5 Pages

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.

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