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Love In The Knight's Tale And The Wife Of Bath

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Throughout the two short stories, “The Knight’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath,” author Geoffery Chaucer introduces a prominent theme of love to the readers. Although the word love connects to both of these stories, Chaucer portrays love in two entirely different ways. By showing the theme of love in multiple demeanors, Chaucer is allowing readers to be able to relate to his main argument in many different ways. In the ‘Knight’s Tale,” love is shown through nobility and passion; whereas, in the “The Wife of Bath,” love is granted through the gift of trust and inner beauty. The modified theme of love within each story exemplifies how love can take on many different forms that are unique to the individuals involved in the special connection. The …show more content…

The knight is this story is being punished for the horrific act of raping a woman, and his punishment is being determined by the Queen. Traditionally, “...this knight was condemned to die according to law, and should have lost his head,” (The Wife of Bath 35-36) but the queen requested that instead, the knight would have one year to discover what it is that women really want from men. During the knight’s journey, the theme of love is debated by various women, who could never in return give the knight the correct answer to the Queen's question. This tale expresses the importance that love is not something that can be taken for granted, and by stealing the maiden’s innocence through the act of rape, the knight undermining love’s prestigious qualities. After a year search, the knight finally reached a woman who would be able to bless him with the knowledge to answer the queen’s question, the old woman declared that “...generally women desire to have dominion over their husband as well as their lovers, and to be over them in mastery” (The Wife of Bath 181-84). In return for answering the queen’s question, the old woman demanded that the knight devoted himself to her through matrimony; although disappointed, the knight complies to the woman’s wish but reject her any form of …show more content…

The theme of love was shown in the two short stories, “The Knight’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath” are two different ways so that Chaucer’s audience would have multiple different stories to help find their true meaning of falling and love. As humans, we are surrounded by love for the moment of conception, for not only our parents are in love; our parents love us too. We are wired so that we are constantly searching for the everlasting feelings of being in love with someone, Chaucer assists readers on the journey of finding true love. Some people in life resist love, others take advantage of it, and some people even reject the idea of being in love, but as humans, we strongly desire the feelings and emotions that are connected with being in love. So to answer the ongoing question of what the correct way to fall in love is, falling in love is like riding a bike you have to keep moving to find what balances

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In the second-to-last stanza, it appears that the woman had decided that the knight had fully learned his lesson, and they were able to have a happy relationship. The last stanza seems to be an ideal that the Wife of Bath holds. Instead of wives being, “meek and young and fresh in bed,” the Wife of Bath wishes for men to be held to that same standard. She also prays that any man who, “won’t be governed by their wives” to be killed, meaning that she wants men to hold the same amount of respect for their romantic partner as anyone else, otherwise they should be punished. These stanzas offer a satisfying conclusion, while also adding in the Wife of Bath’s ideas of gender equality and respect.

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The medieval view of Courtly Love is evident in “The Knight’s Tale” by chivalry, the rules of Courtly Love, and the indirect opposition to the church’s teaching. Courtly Love is a highly conventionalized medieval tradition of love. It is typically between a knight and a married noblewomen. Courtly Love can even be considered as romantic love. “The ideals of this

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The queen says, “‘I’ll grant you life if you can tell to me / What thing it is that women most desire’” (75). A knight agrees to this, which then holds his character until the deep is filled. See, if he fails then he will become a liar.

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The knight accepts the challenge presented to him and stays true to his word despite the circumstances. Both the “Wife of Bath’s Tale” knight and the “Prologue knight show the standard of conduct that the nobility must

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Throughout The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer illustrates to the reader the true characteristics of the Miller and the Reeve by using the aspect of morality to show their related views on love and women. Love, to both the Miller and the Reeve, is frequently associated with beauty, lust, and sexual intercourse. Their vision of love is consistent in both stories; indicating that they care mostly about the women’s physical appearances. This can be easily seen in the stories by the way that the women are described and portrayed. Neither of Chaucer’s story tellers offer much insight into the women’s intelligence or mental characteristics.

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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.

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Also in the story the part where the knight commits the crime that propels the rest of the story, “He saw a maiden walking all forlorn ahead of him, alone as she was born. And of that spite maiden, spite of all she said. By force he took her maidenhead” ( 61- 64). In the first quote the knight learns a valuable lesson that when finding a woman to wife and love, you must evaluate her on how she will treat you and love you.

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(lines 93-98) It appears as if women are hard to understand and decipher when it is men who simply have a misunderstanding of the women’s needs. It seems as if the knight will never find his answer to such a simple question until he comes across an old lady who

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In the story, “The Wife of Bath,” Chaucer handles satire to critique class and nobility. Alike today, class and nobility still haunt us. Being that, we still see it in high school, it obviously hasn 't gone away. Chaucer brings forth the issue by sending the Knight on a journey of a lifetime. When he arrives back, he still doesn 't have the answer that he was sent to find.

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