Shipman's Tale Women Analysis

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Comportment texts portrays women as submissive, virtue and moral individuals that since childhood were trained to absolutely obey their fathers and future husbands.However, this differs with the insight reality of medieval women. In the shipman's tale females convey the roles of materialistic and sexual object beings.Chaucer illustrate medieval women as ambitious individuals that seek equality in male homogeny society, and belong to high social status.

In the Shipman's tale The wife represents a materialistic and unhappy wife with her husband ( the merchant). The wife is discontented with the the merchant due to his unwillingness to buy her expensive clothing and jewelry.So, She is manipulative and capable of doing anything for monetary gain.That is why her decision of sleeping with the monk that borrow her 100 francs to buy clothing.Chaucer at some point satirize the image of women in general for their attempts to gain power during Medieval times.The fact is that during the Middle Ages, Women were seeking social equality with men. Since women lived in a patriarchal society whose roles were to obtain absolute control over women, they had to slowly strike with the problematic of gender roles.

Comportment books convey females as obedient individuals that were in …show more content…

The wife gets to keep the money and has a sexual escapade with the monk. However, she does not get caught or punished by the merchant. The wife is not portrayed as a modest women. She just exchanged her sexuality without showing ashamed to get the money from the monk. The wife represents a permiscuous woman as she tells the Monk that he will be "greatly repaid" for his loan" (Chaucer 194 ). She does not care about moral values and wanted to buy new clothing and jewelry to portrays her high class strata to the whole abbey and gain their