Power In The Wife Of Bath's Tale

The Wife of Bath’s Tale is from the Canterbury Tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer, it is a tale about the battle of the sexes. The narrator is a woman who has “been an expert as wife” who has a tale “of the tribulation in the married life” (Chaucer 155). The Wife of Bath conveys the theme of power in which humans desire to hold over one another. This theme is shown throughout the tale as characters exhibit control over others, recurring images of power over the knight and ideas illustrated by the narrator. Throughout the tale the characters repeatedly demonstrate power over each other. It all starts in the beginning when the knight overpowers the young lady by raping her. In turn, the King holds power over the knight by sentencing him to death. However, the Queen exercises her power of her husband to let her choose the knight’s

In the Wife of Bath’s Tale the event that occurs most often is the knight being given an ultimatum by someone with power over him. This fact contributes to the story’s theme of power. There are three main events that demonstrate this recurring image the best. The first is in the beginning of the story when the Queen decides to give the knight a choice between the sentence given by law, death, or to answer the question “ What is the thing that women most desire” (Chaucer 157). The second is in the middle of the story when the old lady tells the knight that she will only give him the answer if he promises to grant any request that she makes of him, so again he is given an ultimatum between death and agreeing with the woman overpowering him. The third time this is seen is at the end when the old lady, his wife, tells him “You have two choices” (Chaucer 165) one being to have a young beautiful but unfaithful wife or to have an old and ugly wife but who is faithful. These recurring events emphasize the theme of power in the Wife of Bath’s