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Patriarchy In The Reeve's Tale

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But She Likes it Like That: Gender Roles, Realities, and Rape in The Reeve’s Tale from a Feminist Perspective Geoffrey Chaucer is at it again, this time with a vengeance. His cunning characters fairly burst with bawdy antics in The Reeve’s Tale, eliciting delighted laughter from readers… male readers, at least. (CAN I USE THIS ELIPSES FOR A PAUSE IN MY NARRATIVE?) While there is no doubting Chaucer’s work has entertainment value, it comes at a price perhaps too high. Historically, women in literature are oftentimes not afforded kind treatment, and both the wife and daughter in The Reeve’s Tale have a worse fate by far. Poet Chaucer adheres to the stereotypes of the day when describing their appearance, giving scant clues into the minds of the two ladies. Reduced to extensions of the miller in the tale, their respective husband and father, the women are bound by typical gender roles dictating the …show more content…

In The Reeve’s Tale, author Geoffrey Chaucer supports traditional ideologies of the controlling patriarchy , oppressing his female characters to the point of rape, and iterating the internalized social construct of femininity of the day. As the name implies, Feminist Criticism refers broadly to the analysis of traditional …show more content…

Furthermore, Chaucer’s description of her as a scornful woman “brazen as a magpie” brings to mind her failings (3950). The magpie is a chatty bird prone to thievery, and coupled with the lack of a moniker for the woman, she is separate from us in a way that her male counterparts are not. Oppressed by her perceived inadequacies and desire to be a lady, she is instead seen as being disdainful and aloof, endearing us to her not a whit

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