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Gender issue in literature
Gender Issues In Literature
Gender issue in literature
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Gender issue in literature
Gender Issues In Literature
Gender issue in literature
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
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.
Stereotypes of Women in The Canterbury Tales Stereotypes of women have not changed throughout the years of history. Throughout the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer portrays women through negative stereotypes. Women are portrayed as selfish, lustful and immoral. In the Wife of Bath’s Prologue women are portrayed as selfish.
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
Sir Gawain and The Green Knight and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales are two pieces of British literature that are incredibly interesting and thorough. Women play important roles in both of the texts. Throughout Sir Gawain and The Green Knight there are several important females present. The women being Guinevere for a short period of time, Lady Bertilak, and Morgan Le Fay. Guinevere is presented at the beginning of the text before The Green Knight barges into the castle, and is presented as the standard of beauty.
Zillow is a small company that serves one of the largest sectors within the US economy, namely, the Real Estate industry. Though the company is small with only 1,215 employees(reported 12/2014), Zillow is a very data and technological-driven company in which it uses its infrastructure, internet website and mobile applications to provide vital information to their consumers. Their main consumers would be those in the market looking to buy, sell, or rent houses, as well as real estate professionals who are looking at the market in which they are selling in to stay competitive with others in the field. On the note of competition within the industry, Zillow has three top competitors in the business of online real estate management, these are Zaio, Homegain.com, and Market Leader, as of current, Zillow remains the largest business. Businesses such as Zillow rely on the trend of the real estate market, this being said these trends are the seasonal trend and that of population and construction of new living areas.
In The Canterbury Tales, a set of short stories by Geoffrey Chaucer, 29 pilgrims tell stories about their life in order to keep each other entertained on their pilgrimage to Canterbury. One of the pilgrims, Alice, also known as Wife of Bath, particularly stands out. She tells her story of her five husbands, and explains to the readers her ideas of women. These ideas include that women are morally weaker than men, something that she “fixes” by gaining power in unusual ways, such as lying to them or withholding sex. She also gains control over them by always telling them they are in the wrong, something that she considers power because they then believe her and consider her better than them.
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.
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
The Wife of Bath is a character of complexity, filled with magnificent, but for some, preposterous statements. She is made in the image of a modern woman. She is also seen as an outrageous character because of her behavior and five marriages. Her doctrine on marriage is shocking to her companions, evoking such responses that the single man never wants to marry. Her views on marriage sparked a lot of bad responses.
A character that stood out and did not care on how she was looked at was The Wife of Bath. The wife had to be one of the first outspoken and independent women of their times, she was the one who would represented the women of her time and her character change the world of literature for women. This tells us a lot about the roles men and women had to be in. The wife of Bath and Alison from “The Miller’s Tale” were simply women who acted in a way that was not acceptable, but if it was men doing it the same it would be okay, somewhat like today’s society.
The Canterbury Tales contain dozens of characters whose tales are told from several points of view. The wife of bath love sex and the power she gains from it. The knight represents the ideal of a medieval Christian man-at-arms. She has traveled all over the world, Canterbury is on another perilous journey she has endured. She has lived with five husbands and has seen many lands.
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.
This decision made it seem like women are heartless and cruel. However, most critics use the Wife of Bath Tale to decide whether or not Chaucer treatment of women was fair. Many believe that Chaucer treated women fairly in his books for the time period based on the Wife of Bath Tale. One writer, Priscilla Martin believes he is even supported of women and has model the Wife of Bath after himself, “The Wife of Bath shares [Chaucer’s] delight in fictional and narrative diversity.
The Wife of Bath stands for the portrayal of the middle class fair sex in the 14th century England. Even though, there are presumptions that Chaucer is a proto-feminist, the gender divisions presented in The Canterbury Tales are clear and it is difficult to consider Alisoun a revolutionary female character. Definitely, she stands for sexual freedom, yet despite of the fact that she is a woman, she does not see that her situation wrong, contrarily she is eager to find next husband to bring him to submission. Her attempts to dominate men are aimed at her personal profit, she has no feminist
Gender Roles: Interpreting The Opposite Sex In today’s society men and women are often expected to perform different tasks, and occupy different roles based on their sex. Within different cultures, the view of how women and men should act and interact varies with political and religious influences, as well as personal influences. Geoffrey Chaucer suggests that people’s ability to understand the opposite sex is divided because of the stereotypes set in society for the opposite genders. Women are more likely to work as secretaries, and men are likely expected to work as managers and executives in the working field.