Sovereigntyty In The Canterbury Tales Analysis

The theme of marriage and sovereignty in The Wife of Bath’s

The Canterbury Tales was written in the second half of the 14th century, by Geoffrey Chaucer. The work contains more than 20 stories (written in Middle English), and just like in Boccaccio’s Decameron, they are built around a frame narrative. In the narrative 30 pilgrims (29 pilgrims and the narrator) head to Canterbury from Southwark, and during the journey they tell stories to each other. The Wife of Bath is probably the most memorable pilgrim of Geoffrey Chaucer. In the General Prologue we can learn about Alison’s (The Wife) appearance, character and life. She is depicted as a little bit garish and largish woman with gap teeth. She has a cheerful and vigorous personality, and had numerous lovers before her five

It is exceptional, since it is longer than the actual tale. In the prologue Alison talks about her experiences of marriage, explain the basis of her theories, and introduce the point, which she later illustrate in her tale: The thing that women want the most is sovereignty. In the prologue, Alison tells about her five husbands, and about how she get control over each of them. We don’t learn much about the first three husbands, according to Alison’s description they were "goode, and riche, and olde". By “goode” Alison probably means, that they were easy to control, since they obeyed her, whenever she accused them of derogating woman while drunk, and they were just happy when Alison spoke nicely to them. Her first three marriages were uneven matches, in which old and weak, but wealthy men were worn out by the lustful and vigorous, but poor wife. The fourth husband is different from the previous three, as he is a more even match for Alison. He is about her age, and he does not obey her quite as easily. The fourth husband keeps a mistress, for which Alison use a different method to dominate him. She makes him think