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Chaucers characterisation of the wife of bath
Chaucers characterisation of the wife of bath
Chaucers characterisation of the wife of bath
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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.
There are many inferences about the Wife of Bath throughout this story. With inferences such as the wife doesn't find women trustworthy can be showed with examples from the text. "yet out it must, no secret can we hide" (l.124). In this quote she is explaining a tale of a man trusting a women with a secret and then the women not being able to keep the secret and having to tell it to a body of water.
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
The misogyny in The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale describes the incompatible points of power versus knowledge, medieval misogyny versus feminine sexuality, and the staire that emerges from a character who clearly explains sexist charges while assuming her freedom and will. Chaucer decides to portray the Wife of Bath as a misogynistic image of negative characteristics in the interest of utilizing her as an entity of satire. This satire offers stereotypes in a ludicrous plan and makes an effort to alter human character as regards women. Chaucer illustrated the hundred-year-old custom of misogynist writing that was to a higher degree cared for and encouraged the growth of the medieval Church. From time to time, when the male characters are
The Wife of Bath’s behaviors are questionable but are inherently aided by the social injustices that face women of this time period. The Wife of Bath discloses that for her first three marriages she sought out older wealthy men for sex and money. Her intentions included making her husbands fall in love with her and then making them have enormous amounts of sex until they die. In addition, the wife elaborates on her occasional tumultuous tirades of accusing her husbands of being unfaithful to her. Her uproars chided her husbands into persistently obliging into her every request.
Which was pretty monstrous of a thing to do for a woman in this time period. Although Chaucer portrayed women of this time to be evil, unfaithful creatures most may say the wife of bath display’s all of those
Gender role refers to those behaviors and attitudes that are considered to belong to one sex. Gender role is based on femininity and masculinity that differentiate women and men by giving men some roles and women which results to gender inequality. There some work in society that is regarded to belong to women such as cooking, taking care of children and other less important roles while men are given roles that makes them superior than women. Most of the gender roles associated with women makes them inferior and creates a room to be oppressed. Gender roles are constructed by society and attributed to women or men.
I can make an inference that the Wife of Bath has had many partners in marriage. This can give you the impression that she is knowledgable in relationships and marriage specifically. Textual evidence that supports this inference is: "I have had five husbands at the church door--"; which is a translation from old english. This means the tale she will tell will come from an experienced wife, who knows much about men from her experience. However, I can also infer that her view of marriage might be different from others in this society.
Chaucer also uses satire in a more comical way to illustrate how women can’t keep a secret. The Wife of Bath reveals this trait when she says “by heaven, we women can’t conceal a thing” (Chaucer 341), mocking the suggestion that women have an inability to keep a secret. Chaucer also makes fun of the knight’s condition using the irony of women being incapable of keeping a secret as the only thing that can save him. Mocking women and their incapability to not share private information only further reveals Chaucer’s satire.
The Wife of Bath has been the topic of the constant debate as of whether to be categorized as a revolutionary feminist figure or the affirmation of all misogynist views towards women in the times of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. She can be interpreted as a nominalist, her experience gained through her five marriages playing into her approach to love and marriage; parallels are struck concerning her emotional and physical control over her first three husbands and the lack thereof she had in the last two. Scholars have argued in favour of her being one of the first feminist characters in literature as she breaks the mould of a typical feminine figure, written to be more of a character than a prop and her unique insight and opinions lead her
In Chaucer’s descriptive prologues and tales, he discusses many people in pilgrim times. The prologues of the Wife of Bath’s gives a very distinct description of the wife to make her out to be an appealing individual. The prologues gives a lot of details about the Wife of Bath. This is a women whose distinct characteristics made her the genuine and pure person she was. She was portrayed as a sex symbol, a woman of confidence, but a devout Christian.
In the story chaucer begins to describe each pilgrim, the Wife of Bath is one of them. He describes her as a beautiful women at that time. She seemed to be a professional wife due to the fact that she has been married 5 times already. She has practiced the art of love.
Throughout her introduction of the tale, and the story itself, we see the Wife of Bath as an experienced, intellectual woman, who despite living in a world of patriarchal power, provides for herself financially, emotionally, and physically. As a feminist icon, she confronts serious social issues that illustrate the subjugation women faced. During her prologue and her tale, it is very clear that the Wife of Bath is proud and not ashamed of her sexuality. She views sex as a good ideal, and argues it, using references from the Bible, that God’s intentions
To a certain extent, using the Wife of Bath as his mouthpiece, Chaucer does satirise traditional stereotypes, ideas and values held by the Medieval society in which he lived and wrote, though not necessarily those held by men. For instance, the archetype of a noble knight is challenged through her portrayal of a ‘lusty bacheler” (883). Habitually, one would expect a quintessential Medieval knight to be noble, chivalrous and polite, especially towards women, however the Wife’s image portrays a disrespectful, violent and libidinous nobleman who, perhaps due to his heightened sense of social status, feels he can act nefariously towards women, even to the extreme of rape: “by verray force, he rafte hire maidenhed” (887-888)! However, to a contemporary
