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Examples Of Feminist Theory In The Lawyer's Tale

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Samantha MillerMs. Soard30 March 2018English Literature P. 6Feminist Theory in the Lawyer’s TaleThe feminist theory is about how we as a human race are made and viewed by men. An example is God, who is a man is said to have made us. This theory says the woman should be submissive, nurturing, motherly, and quite. It also exposes how women are undervalued and below men (Introduction to Literary Theory, 22-63). In the Lawyer’s tale of Canterbury Tales there is a woman, Constance, who is forced to go to foreign lands and do things she does not want to because it is expected of her as a woman. At the beginning of the story a prince from a far away land decides he wants to marry Constance. He contacts her father and her father agrees to send her to him to be married. …show more content…

She is forced to leave her whole life behind. When she arrives, she is very angry but no one cares because in this time the woman’s job was to obey the men, and do what they ask. Constance is so upset about this that she stabs and kills the Prince and many others that were all at a feist in celebration of the marriage (Chaucer, 92-97) . This goes completely against what the feminist theory says, according to the theory she should have sucked it up and obeyed her soon to be husbands wishes, but instead Chaucer writes her to defy. Her killing the man she is supposed to be submissive to is the opposite of what the theory says, this is showing she is stronger than the man, she is better than the man, and she does not need the man or to obey him. This is the first example of how Constance opposes the feminist

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