In the 1300’s women had little to no rights, yet to be here in 2017 where women have equal rights to the male gender. The world has obviously come a long way in the past seven hundred years. In this time frame, the feminist approach was eventually developed and designed to focus on finding and exposing suggestions of misogyny (negative attitudes toward women) in literature (Polukis 59). The feminist approach is applicable to Geoffrey Chaucer's, The Canterbury Tales, in which he depicts women in a negative light. Throughout his tales, specifically in The Knight's Tale and the Wife of Bath's Tale he portrays women in a certain manner. The overall manner in which Geoffrey Chaucer displays women negatively, is due to his suggestions that women …show more content…
He believes that the only people who are important is the male gender and this can be seen throughout his writings. Chaucer shows how Emily's wishes are ignored because she's unimportant in the men and even in different God’s eyes (“The Knight's Tale” 1449-52). The fact that people view women as unimportant can be shown. It is a common thing for men to just ignore the requests of women because they are not important enough to even have a say in anything. Another way which Chaucer shows how women are unimportant is when the Friar casually cuts off the wife mid sentence because she's but a female and are unimportant (“The Wife of Bath's Prologue” 335). This is a very strong point to be made that the wife was casually cut off stands out because, it was common for a women to be cut off from talking or stopped from making decisions for themselves because they are unimportant. Also it can be brought to attention that the Knight just casually rapes the girl (“The Wife of Bath’s Tale” 31-32), and the punishment he received is less than a death so the rape itself is undermined. The death punishment itself was overseen. This means that the woman who was being raped is unimportant to everyone because the punishment was
Marie de France’s “Lanval” is a brilliantly witty and captivating narrative poem—one illustrating a knight’s unyielding honor and loyalty to his king as well as his enduring chivalric devotion to the woman he loves. Written in the twelfth century, amidst a time when women were looked down upon and considered useless and unnecessary, Marie’s portrayal of a knight needing to be rescued by his female lover breathes comic irony into this otherwise misogynistic and antifeminist world. In addition to this cleverly depicted romance, a further literary work, Geoffrey Chaucer’s early fifteenth century “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” extends its own explicitly satirical outlook
Cox, Catherine S. Gender and Language in Chaucer. Gainesville, Florida: U of Florida P, 1997.
Hansen, Elaine Tuttle. Chaucer and the Fictions of Gender. Berkeley: U of California P. 1992. Print. (Kennedy Library PR1928.W64 H36 1992)
Some say women can get the worst out of a man, but in The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1485, proves it. The tales were originally written as a collection of twenty four tales, but has been narrowed down to three short tales for high school readers. The three tales consist of “The Miller”, “The Knight”, and “The Wife of Bath” along with their respective prologues. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer shows the weak but strong role of women throughout the “The Knight’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” to contrast different human characteristics and stereotypes on the spectrum of people.
Looking back through many historical time periods, people are able to observe the fact that women were generally discriminated against and oppressed in almost any society. However, these periods also came with women that defied the stereotype of their sex. They spoke out against this discrimination with a great amount of intelligence and strength with almost no fear of the harsh consequences that could be laid out by the men of their time. During the Medieval era, religion played a major role in the shaping of this pessimistic viewpoint about women. The common belief of the patriarchal-based society was that women were direct descendants of Eve from The Bible; therefore, they were responsible for the fall of mankind. All of Eve’s characteristics from the biblical story were believed to be the same traits of medieval women. Of course, this did not come without argument. Two medieval women worked to defy the female stereotype, the first being the fictional character called The Wife of Bath from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. The second woman, named Margery Kempe, was a real human being with the first English autobiography written about her called The Book of Margery Kempe. In these two texts, The Wife of Bath and Margery Kempe choose to act uniquely compared to other Christians in the medieval time period because of the way religion is interpreted by them. As a result, the women view themselves as having power and qualities that normal women of their society did not.
“Culture does not make people. People make culture” said Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian writer and educator, in a presentation on feminism in a TedTalk. The culture in which Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was written was misogynistic and it shows in the writing of the poem. Medieval cultural misogyny manifests itself in multiple ways in SGGK. This paper will examine the negative relationships between Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and gender by discussing: the representation of female characters, gendered violence, and Christianity in the Middle Ages.
During the medieval ages, women were described as evil creatures that would destroy anyone standing in their way to get what they want. People claimed that women's malicious intentions clouded their judgment from doing the right thing forcing them to be selfish. In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales and Malory’s The Death of King Arthur, both focus on women’s behavioral impulses through their dishonesty, manipulation, and their promiscuity.
Although society has advanced dramatically technologically, I feel that we still have a long way to go when it comes to how we view one another. It amazes me that in a society such as ours, that bases its existence on the equality of all people, that misogyny (as it occurred in medieval times) still takes place. A timeless example of misogyny is the objectifying of women, which suggests that a woman's sexual beauty is her only worth. In dealing with this misconstruction, some women, as in the case of Bercilak's wife in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" and Alisoun in "The Miller's Tale" from The Canterbury Tales, use their sex appeal to deceive, lure, and, manipulate men. A small part of me shamefully admits that I respect, and even appreciate, the way in which a woman can outsmart a man by entertaining his sexist views; however, as a whole, I strongly feel that if a woman uses her sexuality for her own advancement, then she is contributing to her own misogyny.
Traditional female characteristics and female unrest are underscored in literary works of the Middle Ages. Although patriarchal views were firmly established back then, traces of female contempt for such beliefs could be found in several popular literary works. Female characters’ opposition to societal norms serves to create humor and wish- fulfillment for female and male audiences to enjoy. “Lanval” by Marie De France and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” by Geoffrey Chaucer both show subversion of patriarchal attitudes by displaying the women in the text as superior or equal to the men. However, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” also incorporates conventional societal ideas by including degradation of women and mistreatment of a wife by her husband.
In both the Miller’s Tale and the Wife of Bath’s Tale, Chaucer uses his characters and stories in order to project various stereotypes to the reader. Although varying a tad bit throughout the book, the tone that seems to be drawn from the stories is that women are manipulating, sinful, and power hungry, while men are considered gullible and rash. Its through understand and analyzing these stereotypes that we can fully understand what Chaucer’s stories are trying to convey to us.
Chaucer, in his female pilgrimage thought of women as having an evil-like quality that they always tempt and take from men. They were depicted as untrustworthy, selfish and vain and often like caricatures not like real people at all. Through the faults of both men and women, Chaucer showed what is right and wrong and how one should live. Under the surface, however, lies a jaded look of women in the form that in his writings he seems to crate them as caricatures and show how they cause the downfall of men by sometimes appealing to their desires and other times their fears. Chaucer obviously had very opinionated views of the manners and behaviours of women and expressed it strongly in The Canterbury Tales. In his collection of tales, he portrayed two extremes in his prospect of women. The Wife of Bath represented the extravagant and lusty woman where as the Prioress represented the admirable and devoted followers of church. Chaucer delineated the two characters contrastingly in their appearances, general manners, education and most evidently in their behaviour towards men. Yet, in the midst of disparities, both tales left its readers with an unsolved enigma.
Sir Gawain and The Green Knight is an example of medieval misogyny. Throughout Medieval literature, specifically Arthurian legends like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the female characters, Guinevere, the Lady, and Morgan leFay are not portrayed as individuals but social constructs of what a woman should be. Guinevere plays a passive woman, a mere token of Arthur. The Lady is also a tool, but has an added role of temptress and adulteress. Morgan leFay is the ultimate conniving, manipulating, woman. While the three women in this legend have a much more active role than in earlier texts, this role is not a positive one; they are not individuals but are symbols of how men of this time perceive women as passive tokens, adulteresses, and manipulators.
The roles of women was an issue in medieval times and in The Canterbury Tales. In A Knight 's Tale, the women were portrayed as objects. To men they didn 't mean much. Women for them were there to help only when needed and didn 't hold an important role in society. Women were treated differently and had not much of importance.
In the Middle Ages, the roles of women became less restricted and confined and women became more opinionated and vocal. Sir Gawain and The Green Knight presents Lady Bertilak, the wife of Sir Bertilak, as a woman who seems to possess some supernatural powers who seduces Sir Gawain, and Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath Prologue and Tale, present women who are determined to have power and gain sovereignty over the men in their lives. The female characters are very openly sensual and honest about their wants and desires. It is true that it is Morgan the Fay who is pulling the strings in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; nevertheless the Gawain poet still gives her a role that empowers her. Alison in The Wife if Bath Prologue represents the voice of feminism and paves the way for a discourse in the relationships between husbands and wives and the role of the woman in society.
As a man fascinated with the role of women during the 14th Century, or most commonly known as the Middle Ages, Chaucer makes conclusive evaluations and remarks concerning how women were viewed during this time period. Determined to show that women were not weak and humble because of the male dominance surrounding them, Chaucer sets out to prove that women were a powerful and strong-willed gender. In order to defend this argument, the following characters and their tales will be examined: Griselda from the Clerk's Tale, and the Wife of Bath, narrator to the Wife of Bath's Tale. Using the role of gender within the genres of the Canterbury Tales, exploring each woman's participation in the outcomes of their tales, and comparing and contrasting these two heroines, we will find out how Chaucer broke the mold on medievalist attitudes toward women.