...“The Wife of Bath’s Tale”: The Envy of Youth In “The Prologue of the Wife of Bath’s Tale” experience, power-struggles, and manipulations created knowledge, but eventually after time age had belittled: and the envy of the young arose. The main objective is authority, who is engaged by it, who has acquired it, who is deprived or ruined from it; and how can one acquire it. The wife engages her audience by sharing her experiences. She says, “Experience-and no matter what they say in books-is good enough authority” (219). By her disregarding those books, she attempts to show that her experiences have more value; it also suggests the books may be judgmental about her beliefs, character, or life choices. Yet, “good-enough” can also be perceived as a sign of weakness and therefore cause her to lose credibility in her experience. Nevertheless, she soon reveals the advantages of her experiences and shows a great delight in demonstrating her power to control and dominate her marriages. Regarding an older husband, she said, “For during his life I’ve “power of his body” and not he” (223), she is claiming power over an object is proclaiming that until her husband dies, she will have possession over his body. Also makes sure to point out, she has the control, not him. Which also gives a sense of the power struggles between sexes. Her arrogance is so strong that she admits she didn’t value her husband’s love. Then again, why would she? She is only interested in sharing the techniques...
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...As a stark contrast, this concept of celebrating powerful women in “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale” is almost invisible in the BBC cartoon. Throughout the cartoon, women are continually painted in a negative light—starting off with the Wife of Bath flirting with the Friar (BBC 0:25), as previously mentioned. The aggression and drama surrounding the tale only pertain to the female characters, making them seem as if they are crazy; it severely delegitimizes their actions and attitudes. The old woman who eventually marries the knight is relentlessly made fun of—one scene in particular shows her face up close licking her lips, telling the knight “I want to be your wife and your love!” (BBC 4:43) while his face is utterly disgusted. This depicts...
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...struggles. In The Wife of Bath, this is the total opposite when it comes to women and how they are treated. The wife was very outspoken, controlling, and manipulative getting her way in many situations. The Wife of Bath gives a view into a woman that is dependent on their husbands in the middle Ages. She is always dependent upon her husbands for material things such as money. This reveals that marriage during this time had little to do with love, but a lot to do with...
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...In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer shows the faults through the rights and wrongs of how to live of both men and women in the Wife of Bath, Miller’s, and Merchant’s Tale. Geoffrey Chaucer shows the liberal perspective of women in the “Wife of Bath's Tale.” The liberal perspective is shown in women in the beginning of the tale by the king granting the Queen the power and decision to whether the Knight would live or die. Unlike most women during the Middle Ages the Queen had a mind and a voice of her own. Even though the Queen intimidates people by the power she possess, Chaucer depicts her as what men don’t want. The Queen has the power over life or death “And suretee wol I han, er that thou pace, thy body for to yelden in this place,”...
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...In the time period between 1066 and 1485, better known as the medieval age, a set of standards and how people are placed into order of importance in society is known as feudalism. In this caste system there are four groups; Kings, Barons, Vassals, and Serfs. The main individual of focus comes from the vassals, better known as the knight. Knights from this time period start out around 7 years old and are taught a code of chivalry (code of conduct) and the basics of knight hood. The knight in the Wife of Bath’s tale forcibly violates a young madden and punished with execution by decapitation. He is saved by the queen but is sent on a twelve month and a day quest. The knight in the Wife of Bath’s Tale doesn’t display chivalry by his actions of violating an innocent woman and continues to dishonor this code by being demeaning and crass to an old woman who helps save his life yet at the end allows the old woman to make a decision regarding his life. At the begging of the story a young knight comes across a beautiful madden. Overcome by lust and power he rapes her. The court is defamed by his actions and they condemn him to death. He was going to be executed but “the queen and the other ladies too, implored the king to exercise his grace so ceaselessly, he gave the queen the case and granted her his life, and she could whether to show mercy of refuse.” (70-74) His actions are unchiviric because he forcibly violates a young lady. Any code of conduct should say that rape is unjustified...
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...The Wife of Bath is a woman who considers herself as an expert of love. She has gapped teeth and deaf in one ear, she came from a town called bath.She had gapped teeth, She was married 5 times that brought her joy and strife with in her life. She was known to have talent in very many ways as she was really good when it came to sewing, she would wear bright clothes. She always was bold, and fair, and had red on. The story is about a knight who raped a girl because he wanted to show dominance. When the king found out he sentenced the knight to be killed by beheading him.The queen than found out and she gave the knight a chance to redeem himself by sending him out on a quest. The quest requested that the knight needed to find out what women most desired in men. The knight searched day and night but every woman gave him a different answer so he had a bit of a confusion. The knight kept searching but he felt his quest had come to an end. The knight than decided it was best to turn around and go back to the kingdom, When leaving the knight became...
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...Role of Marriage in "The Wife of Bath" Canterbury Tales In most modern marriages today, both men and women contribute to the same relationship roles such as being the provider, communicator, negotiator and so on. In the 14th century, most marriages were arranged and the woman had to obey her husband’s commands. During this time, Geoffrey Chaucer's wrote The Canterbury Tales. His stories demonstrate a variety of attitudes toward the perceptions of marriage, with some of these ideas being extremely conservative while others are wildly liberal. While several of these tales are rather comical, Chaucer gives us a representation of his attitudes toward marriage at that time in history. When addressing the question of who has correctly identified the proper roles in marriage, it is The Wife of Bath, a tale that satirically demonstrates the wife's overall desire for mastery within the marriage by her manipulation of the husband's weaknesses of both the flesh and the mind. It is these peculiarities of the Wife of Bath's tale that uniquely answer the question of who deserves the mastery in marriage. The Wife of Bath's prologue introduces the pilgrim who narrates this tale, Alison, a gap toothed, partially deaf seamstress and widower of five husbands, claiming to have great experience in the ways of the heart by remedying whatever might ail it. Alison, unlike the other tales in comparison, describes marriage as a miserable experience. The Wife of Bath's tale sets itself apart by presenting...
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...heroes, supernatural elements, vivid descriptions, strong use of literary elements (alliteration, assonance, consonance, imagery, etc.), poetry, ballads, and plays. • The only four Anglo-Saxon works include Beowulf, A History of the English Church and People, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and The Exeter Book. • Important Medieval works include Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, Le Morte D’Arthur, Everyman, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and ballads (“Get Up and Bar the Door”, “Sir Patrick Spens”, “Bonny Barbara Allan”). What essential question(s) will be considered? • What are the elements of Anglo-Saxon and Medieval literature? What key...
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...and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” showed good and bad qualities when considering the codes of chivalry. The knight in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” showed loyalty to King Arthur. He showed his loyalty by taking the place of King Arthur’s challenge to the Green Knight: Gawain by Guenevere Toward the king doth now incline: “I beseech, before all here, That...
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...The Wife of Bath’s Tale; Chaucer’s Early Feminism When the knight from The Wife of Bath’s Tale is to be put to death for taking the ”maidenhead” of a young maiden, he is offered a chance to live, if he can find out what women really want in life. He finds out that women just want to be in charge of their relationships, and have the freedom to make choices on their own. The knight eventually gets married, and shows his true understanding of what women really want. This suggests that, for his time, Chaucer has progressive feminist views. The Wife of Bath’s Tale displays these feminist values through three major events in the tale. The knight’s sentencing, was a major event in The Wife of Bath’s Tale, and in which, a female was in a high place of power, which displays progressive views towards woman in power. King Arthur lets his queen decide what punishment to give to the knight. The king normally made this decision, but the queen requested to make the decision and “ceaselessly, he [King Arthur] gave the queen the case.”(72) This willingness to let his wife make decisions shows feminist intention from Chaucer. The question asked to the knight: “What is the thing that women most desire?” (81) is a feminist one, for it’s a question not asked too often in that time. The decision of the king to allow his wife to decide, and the penalty decided upon by the queen, both allude to the feminism in The Wife of Bath’s Tale. When the knight meets the old hag, he swears his life to her...
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...Divine Hypocrisy (A literary analysis of Chaucer’s use of satire to reach his audience) As you go through life you learn that many times most people do not agree with what you do. They all have their own interests as we have our own. People of all denominations perform many different jobs some even the same jobs, but others out do the others in their field. Chaucer is considered to be one of the greatest English poets of all time. Many refer to him as the father of the English language. Chaucer wrote one of the best known books titled Canterbury Tales. Chaucer’s literary work is one of the most famous books to ever be written. Within his book there are many smaller stories told by different characters told within it. All of the smaller...
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...Part of the reason why The Canterbury Tales as a collection is so memorable is because of its dramatic nature. Some tales create drama through their plots, others create drama through various interjections and responses, and some create drama through their build up. Specifically, in regards to “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale”, the drama stems from the Wife of Bath as a character, and not as much from the tale itself. As a character, it is obvious that the Wife of Bath is a fierce woman with an I-don’t-give-a-shit type of attitude. She does what she wants and knows how to get her way: “And have this tribulacioun withal upon his flessh, whyl that I am his wyf. I have the power duringe al my lyf upon his proper body, and nought he.” (Chaucer...
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...Canterbury Tales The Canterbury Tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer is a book filled with tales and prologues during the late medieval time period. Chaucer was born in 1342 in Paris. Chaucer lived the majority of his life privileged and on the kings’ (Richard II until 1399 then Henry IV) payroll. Chaucer began writing The Canterbury Tales in 1387, and worked on it throughout the 90’s. Of the few tales that I read (“The Prologue”, “The Miler’s Prologue”, “The Miller’s Tale”, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale Prologue”, and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”), it seems clear that love and marriage are underlying themes throughout. But, love and marriage are two separate things during this time period. What the characters perceive to be love is actually lust. This will become evident throughout the tales. “The Prologue” is where Chaucer introduces all of the characters that will be prevalent throughout The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer describes the season as being April, and goes into detail about each character. It should be noted that the 29 characters that Chaucer mentioned were brought together by chance and did not plan this meeting. Each character had stopped at Tabard Inn, while waiting to embark on the pilgrimage to Canterbury. The night before the pilgrimage was to begin, the host offered a proposition to the pilgrims. He suggested a simple task: Now listen for your good, And please don’t treat my notion with disdain. This is the point. I’ll make it short and plain. Each one...
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...Literature Mr. Conole 9/18/15 Wife of Bath’s Tale; Breton Lais or Arthurian Romance The Wife of Bath’s Tale is one of the most famous tale by Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, in which it discusses women issues in the medieval time. Indecent and strong willed, the wife of Bath refuses to allow men to control her existence by taking measures to shape her own destiny; she tells men what to do instead of letting them have the control in the relationship. The wife is often viewed as a feminist because she ignores the rules and makes people think about the roles women play in society. Although many readers might think the Wife of Bath's Tale is an Arthurian Romance, it is more accurately described as a Breton Lais. Early in the tale the reader learns that, “There was a knight who was lusty live / One day as he came riding from the river / He saw a maiden walking all forlorn / Ahead of him, alone as she was born, / And of that maiden, spite of all she said, / By very force he took her maidenhead” (Chaucer 141). The knight rapes the virgin early in the tale and is a central figure throughout the entire story, thus making him a clear candidate for the protagonist. Although one might think that the knight is the protagonist Goucher College suggests that, “The protagonist could be male or female, which is rare in romances, where the protagonist almost always is male” (Breton 1). The old woman in the tale illustrates this point. She enters the tale when the knight approaches her on his...
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...The Canterbury Tales Hansen, Elaine Tuttle. "The Wife of Bath and the Mark of Adam." Women's Studies 15.4 (1988): 399-416. JSTOR [JSTOR]. Web. 26 Oct. 2015. Hansen has two facets of her argument about The Wife of Bath from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The first explains how important the Wife is to the feminist critic, while the second paradoxically argues that she can be looked at as antifeminist based on the fact that she is a speaker that in reality is the voice of a man. Her views are manipulated and characterized by a man, therefore they do not allow a true woman's voice to be heard. In part one of her argument she is in favor of the idea of the Wife of Bath...
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