More handpicked essays just for you.
Chaucer's Attitude Toward Women in the Canterbury Tales
Chaucer's Attitude Toward Women in the Canterbury Tales
Chaucer's Attitude Toward Women in the Canterbury Tales
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Travis Boyette was 44 years old at the time the story takes place. He was a convicted rapist and a murderer who spent many years in prison on multiple occasions before being released to a halfway house in Topeka, Kansas. Travis was set up for a life of crime and pain during his incredibly troubled childhood. He was raped repeatedly as a little boy by a man who he thought was his uncle. Later in life he discovered that the man he thought was his father was really someone's his mom had met after giving birth to him.
Chaucer’s Portrayal of the Wife of Bath The Wife of Bath presents the reader with a woman who compiles to the stereotypes corresponding with the negative misogyny of women during the medieval times. Wife of Bath is viewed the same as this stereotypical woman. Some can agree with Chaucer’s choice of these negative traits of The Wife of Bath, but the same conclusion is always met. Chaucer chooses to display the Wife of Bath as a misogynistic symbol of negative traits in order to use her as an object of mockery.
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.
The third comparison if how both travellers have corrupt desires. The Pardoner wants money and uses his profession as a pardoner to rob people of their money; in relation to how the Wife of Bath uses her sexual abilities to trick men and bribe them to give her things and do whatever she says.[TS3-Comparison]. The Wife of Bath talks about virginity and chastity and how it is a great perfection, like Christ, but she explains that she is not this type and will use her abilities in marriage in her favor. [CE5]. “But Christ, the fountain of perfection, did not instruct every person to go sell all that he had and give to the poor, and in such a fashion follow him and his footsteps.
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 Canterbury Tales displayed women as an ideology that women could not hold power and that beauty could be obtained by altering their appearance for women to become attributes for men. In this society, Chaucer is sympathetic to women while also realizing that men own women. The Wife of Bath went through five husbands, each giving her just what she wanted. All of her marriages taught her something different, either you get love or your give love.
The Wife of Bath and her tale are the most similar out of all the tales because they both share a domineering outlook over others. In the general prologue she is told to have had five husbands and is described as a looker, “Her face was bold and handsome and ruddy,” (Chaucer 39). In her prologue she goes more in depth of her time spent with her five husbands. Wife of Bath talks most about how she gains control over her husbands. For instance, her fifth husband was the controlling force in their marriage until he made the mistake of hitting her and telling her he would do anything to keep her with him and said, “My own true wife, do as you wish for the rest of your life…” (335).
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.
Chaucer's “The Wife of Bath” portrays negative stereotypes of women in the Middle Ages. Many people believe that the Wife was one of the first feminist characters in literature, unfortunately this statement is discouraged due to the fact that the Wife conforms to many of these misogynistic stereotypes. The Wife denies men of sexual favors when she discovers they are not paying her the amount of money she desires. She declares herself as a dominating woman, who is ready to trade her sex for money but also forcefully argues against the misogynistic views of women. Which is hypocritical and shows that the Wife is adapting to the stereotypes.
The women in Othello and Chaucer's Wife of Bath differ, but in the end both want their husbands to love them. In Othello there are only three women displayed in the story, but the statements that were said about these three women were the belief that all women in that society were all the same- evil, whores who were temptress to the men. The three women; Desdemona, the wife of Othello, Emilia, the wife of Iago, and Bianca, perceived as a prostitute who is a “customer” (l. 138. 4.1) of Cassio. Iago is one of the main characters who degrades and slanders all women including his wife Emilia.
The Presentation of Gender in the Wife of Bath as a Response to Medieval Misogyny While the exploration of gender and power through literature was not new to Chaucer, the Canterbury Tales seemed to serve as a vessel for the cumulation of his unfinished ideas and storylines concerning women and the role that men play in their lives. The theme of gender and power is discernible throughout a suitable amount of the Canterbury Tales. Arguably, the story in which this theme is presented in the most impactful way is the Wife of Bath’s Tale. Chaucer exhibits a rebuttal of medieval misogyny through the Wife of Bath’s Tale, championing the Wife of Bath as an icon of female independence. This is presented through the language used to describe the Wife
The Wife of Bath is about what women want or desire in life, and how they want to have their own rights instead of someone controlling them it also talks about a knight who is very desperate in the world because he wants things that are perfect. In the story the wife’s character is very is intelligent because in the story it says “Some said that women wanted wealth and treasure, “honor said some,some jollity and pleasure” This tells us that she was married before, she still knows what women in this world want in order to feel good about themselves. The wife also has a good spirit because she and the Friar seem to be very good friends, because in the story it says “Well, ma’am,” he said, as God may send me bliss this is a long preamble to the
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.
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
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.
