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Marriage and Sovereignty
The Canterbury Tales was written during the Medieval Era when women were
seen inferior to men. Women during this time were bound to loveless, arranged
marriages as which was the Wife of Bath's case because she was married at the age of
twelve. These marriages were arranged for the families to acquire social and political
gain. Women during this era could not own property, and had no political rights. Their
social standing solely depended on their husband or father's social status. Although she
endured hardships she was a woman who refused to accept this concept. Nothing else
was of importance to her than desiring and acquiring sovereignty and wealth from her
husbands.
The Wife of Bath, whose name is Alyson, is an older, gaped-toothed woman who
is dressed ridiculously in extravagant clothing. She dresses in this manner to show the
world of her wealthy status like a cat shows off its beautiful coat. She is not described as
a beautiful woman, but her character is forceful and exuberant. The Wife of Bath is one
of the pilgrims on her way to Canterbury to visit the shrine of St. Thomas Becket. This is
not her first pilgrimage and she makes it known to the others that she is experienced and
that she is an authority on marriage since she has been married five times. It seems that
her purpose of her pilgrimage is more for adventure and social communication than for
religious reasons.
The Wife of Bath is considered a sensual character because women during the
Medieval era demonstrated proper manners and etiquette, which she seemed to lack. She
prowls after men for sexual pleasure and wealth. She is not ashamed to info...
... middle of paper ...
...ng he
struck her with one of the books causing her to go deaf in one ear. Being the stubborn
woman that she is she refused to leave and instead struck him back. She then mentions to
the others that they reconciled and he was putty in her hands from that day forward. She
was able to achieve what she desired the most, to govern over her husband until his death.
Her story resembles her fifth marriage with the knight portrayed as her young husband
and herself as the old hag in the story.
With the creation of the character of the Wife of Bath, Chaucer, clearly makes his
disapproval known of women in the Medieval era were beginning to lack religious moral
conduct. He successfully makes his point across with Alyson?s misuse of religious
scripture and the use of her numerous marriages and sexual encounters to obtain wealth.
The speaker's relationship with her husband had to go over a few changes. At first, she did not want anything to do with her husband, she was still fourteen years old consequently feeling unready on handling such a big responsibility, but she had no other choice but to stay with him as she was a part of an arranged marriage. Later on, the speaker accepts her relationship with her husband and
...disrespect from Tea Cake. She threatens him, saying if he leaves her again without her permission she will “kill yuh” (124). Within Janie’s past marriages her husbands treat her comparable to a slave and isolate her from the community. Even though her voice is still developing, she will not allow her husband to show her contempt. During the trial, Janie both matures and shows control over her voice, as she faces the horror of retelling the story of Tea Cake’s death to the court room. While giving her testimony, Janie knows when to talk; however, when she is through “she hushed” (187). By expressing and controlling her voice in court, Janie ultimately reveals her new found vocal maturity, but it is only because of her final marriage to Tea Cake that Janie finally develops an understanding of when and how to use her voice.
marriage. She was to do just as he said, without so much as uttering a
great lengths to postpone marriage to one of them. She puts the men off for
The Wife of Bath, with the energy of her vernacular and the voraciousness of her sexual appetite, is one of the most vividly developed characters of 'The Canterbury Tales'. At 856 lines her prologue, or 'preambulacioun' as the Summoner calls it, is the longest of any of the pilgrims, and matches the General Prologue but for a few lines. Evidently Chaucer is infatuated with Alisoun, as he plays satirically with both gender and class issues through the Wife's robust rhetoric. Scholars and students alike have continued this obsession with her, and as a consequence Chaucer's larger than life widow has been subject to centuries of scrutiny. Indeed, she is in the vast minority amongst the Canterbury bound pilgrims; apart from the in-vogue Prioress she is the only female - though she appears in no way daunted by the apparent inequality in numbers. It seems almost a crime to examine masculinity in her prologue and tale, but as I hope to show, there is much to learn both about the Wife and about Chaucer from this male presence.
Carruthers, Mary. "The Wife of Bath and the Painting of Lions" The Geoffrey Chaucer Page. 30 June 2000
example of the complicated nature of Chaucer’s belief system. On the one hand, we have many strong female characters that despite still being extremely dependant on the men in their lives, know what they want out of life. From a contrasting point of view, readers see a group of men, including Chaucer as the writer himself, making fun of the very nature of women as a whole. Is this really how Chaucer felt towards women, or is the prologue of The Wife of Bath’s Tale simply a parody of the opinions of his time?
found her and brought her to a church sanctuary so that they could have a legal marriage, in which they later did. Shakespeare
He refers the marriage as him purchasing her. He thinks the marriage was just a transaction and that she was just bought by him.
The Wife of Bath is a complex character-she is different from the way she represents herself. Maybe not even what she herself thinks she is. On the surface, it seems as though she is a feminist, defending the rights and power of women over men. She also describes how she dominates her husband, playing on a fear that was common to men. From a point of view of a man during that time period, she seemed to illustrate all of the wrongs that men found in women. Such as a weak parody of what men, then saw as feminists. The Wife of Bath constantly emphasizes the negative implications of women throughout the ages. She describes women as greedy, controlling, and dishonest.
In "The Wife of Bath" one of the first issues the speaker, Alison, addresses' is the idea of double standards. As she begins the prologue she lays the groundwork for her story by defending one's right to marry as often as they are able. While people often believe that it is immoral for a woman to marry more than once, Alison discusses the idea that she should be free to marry as many times as she wishes and that others should hold their judgment (Hieatt & Hieatt, 183, line 34). She claims that she has never heard the specific number of marriages allowed by the bible defined. She sites Solomon as a biblical standard saying that he had many wives and no doubt received pleasure from all of them (183-184, lines 35-45). Within this example Alison claims that it is acceptable not only for her to marry as often as she wishes, but also to receive phys...
The Wife of Bath Prologue and Tale. Geoffery Chaucer. The Middle Ages, Volume 1A. Eds. Christopher Baswell and Anne Howland Schotter. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Fourth ed. Gen.eds David Damrosch, and Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson-Longman, 2010. 375-408. Print.
Virtually everything the Wife of Bath does or says regarding different aspects of her life demonstrates that she is very insecure about herself. She begins her prologue by informing the travelers that she has the authority to argue about and discuss marriage because of her experiences: “Experience, though noon auctori...
her life. She longed to live an independent life, but struggled to earn a living wage with the jobs she
lies and tells her that he has torn the manuscript into pieces because he has torn his own