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The Wife Of Bath Research Paper

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A life in the hands of women in The Wife of Bath The Wife of Bath is one of many short stories found in The Canterbury Tales, that Geoffrey Chaucer wrote. The setting started by a group of travelers trying to get to the holy land. The period this took place was the Medieval Times. The Medieval period was a very unsafe for anyone to travel alone, so groups of people gather together to get to the next town or wherever they needed to be. Each traveler would took saying a short story or poem around the camp fire, so they would not be tried of traveling all the time. There was a lady from the town of Bathe, she was one of the travelers with money. She traveled by horse and was partly deaf (Chaucer, line 445 page 438). Her story was about a knight …show more content…

In the Medieval Times, knights were common. These men were held at a higher standard than others. For their sacrifices these men lived by the code of honor very closely (online, Middle Ages, http://www.learner.org/exhibits/middleages/ ) . Which were hospitality rules, gifting, fair fighting, and vengeance. This one knight did not follow this code, he challenged it when he saw a lady in front of him. As in lines 887-888, “From which maid annon, despite hir will, True force stole hire maydenhed.” These two lines are telling us that the knight forced himself onto the lady and took her virginity. Women did not have a lot to live by, but the most important thing was their virginity. If she ever wanted to marry she would have to be pure before her wedding day. The knight took away this opportunity for her. He was breaking both code of honor for she and himself. He had to pay for the consequences of his actions. The knight went before the King and Queen to find out his faith. As in lines 890-891, “And swich appeal unto the Kyng Arthour, that condemned was this knight for to be dead.” He knew what kind of outcome he was going to have, but he still went before the court. As we notice that the Queen will play a very important role in this

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It is pretty obvious that the knight doesnt want to marry the old lady. He offers everything else he has but begs her to let him be free. ¨Old lady, by the Lord I know indeed that such was my behest, but for Gods lovethink of a new request, take all my goods, but leave my body free¨. (232-235) After this she agrees that she is not all that pretty, has no money, and is foul. But despite all this she wont agree to change her mind, she in the end forces the knight to wed her and all his arguments are futile.¨ If I agree!

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The Wife of Bath: An Analysis of Her Life and Her Tale The Wife of Bath’s Prologue stays consistent with the facts that experience is better than the societal norms, specifically those instilled by the church leadership. Chaucer uses the Wife of Bath to display the insanity of the church, but through switching and amplifying their view of men and chastity onto the opposite gender. The church doctrine at the time held celibacy in an idolized manner, forgetting the inability for humans to ever reach perfection, or live up to this standard. They also did not hold women in a high regard at all, again this is where Chaucer flips the role, as the Wife of Bath describes her five marriages in her prologue, essentially describing each as a conquest, where the result is her having all control.

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