My main focus in the many books from the Canterbury tales was the one of: “ The wife of Bath’s prologue and tale “.
The wife of bath is meant not meant to contradict the misogynist of her time, but the scriptural rules of the church.
This woman was a “lady” of lust, and did not care to gain or lose love, but she loaned for power over men and woman. She was a woman who would turn men against other women so that she could have complete control over the man, and make them her husbands in which she had 5 of since the age of twelve. One she had complete control over the man she portrayed herself to be a woman of biblical stature. Contradictive right? That’s where this woman began to grow more and more interesting.
The wife of bath was said to have believed in God. To my surprise she was supposedly a strong believer, but one who only believed that man heard from god and not women. Once in her life she received a word from god through a woman prophetess, the woman told her that her fifth husband to be was not her husband. Receiving this information and quickly becoming furious, because she knew within her that it was her husband, the wife of bath took her husband alone and married him anyway.
The wife was a very headstrong lady who knew what she wanted. And if she didn’t get what she wanted out of her husbands she knew how to get it. She was one who rather than following authority she followed her the rules of experience instead. She could not understand, (even though she was a believer), why Jesus rebuked the woman at the well in the bible who also, like herself, had five husbands. So instead of taking that into perspective she chose the “ go on and multiply command”.
She compares herself to other men in the bible who had ...
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... men who were blinded by her true self. She wanted power and love, but the power she had over her men outweighed the love. It did not work out for her good She grew older realizing all that she had done to many men. She came to the realization that she is just old, and miserable. And anyone can come to the conclusion that she was a woman who couldn’t find true love.
Works Cited
W.W.Norton and Company. The Norton Anthology World Literature. Ed. Peter Simon. new york: W.W. Norton and Company, 2013.
Brewer, Gwen W. "What Women Want: The Wife of Bath and the Modern Woman." Human Quest Jul 2001: 3. ProQuest. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.
Arnell, Carla. "Chaucer's Wife of Bath and John Fowles's Quaker Maid: tale-telling and the trial of personal experience and written authority." The Modern Language Review 102.4 (2007): 933+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.
In her "Prologue" the Wife of Bath describes her last, fifth, marriage to Janekin. After a huge fight with him, caused by Alisoun's ripping pages out of his book of wicked wives, Janekin grants her the control over the house and the land, what makes her very happy, and she treats her husband with kindness from then on. He yaf me al the bridel in my hand. To have the governance of houses and land. After that day we had never debated.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. "The Wife of Bath's Tale." Canterbury Tales. McDougal Littell Literature British Literature, 2012. Print. 180-192.
It is first important to understand the background of both The Wife of Bath and Margery Kempe’s stories. The Wife of Bath was a character created by Geoffrey Chaucer who is radically different from the nonfictional character of Margery Kempe. The Wife of Bat...
Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale.” From The Riverside Chaucer, Third Edition. Ed. Larry D. Benson. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.
Regularly characterized as monsters, women were ridiculed for being sexually unappeasable, lustful, and shrewish, and they were regarded with condescension by the church authorities. Similarly, people in the medieval era regarded multiple marriages as highly questionable, and it is for this reason that the Wife of Bath carefully examines the words of God as revealed in scripture (revealing her to be more than a simple-minded woman: a knowledge of religious texts proves she is definitely educated and well-read). She confesses that nowhere can she find a stricture against her having more than one marriage, and her five husbands are therefore her choice and hers only. “He seith to be wedded is no synne:/ Bet is to be wedded than to brynne”, she remarks humorously, drawing on the fact that by God’s permission, finding a partner through marriage is a pastime with little consequences, for it is better than engaging in sin and burning for it (50-53. 301). This begins her analysis of the bible and the often “sinful” breakdown of a sexual relationship between man and woman, and introduces her repetitive idea of the
The image of the woman in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue is depicted by Chaucer to be “barley wheat” in a town and civilization lusting for whole white wheat or virginity (Chaucer 1711). The woman has married many men and in doing so forgotten the true value of the Christian faith and now believes worldly influence can overpower the scriptures of the Bible, “can you show in plain words that Almighty God forbade us marriage? Or where did he command virginity?” (Chaucer 1709). Jackie Shead analyzes the prologue and states, “it begins by manipulating authoritative texts--a pre-emptive strike to justify the Wife's marital history and her single-minded pursuit of self-gratification” (Shead). The possibility of the Wife of B...
Wife of Bath. Her character is noted to be strong and bold and we learn
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.
In the Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Chaucer illustrates the different perspective between men and women on the concept of marriage and love. In The Wife of Bath’s tale, it is shown the woman appreciating marriage and wanting to be able to love a man unconditionally as where in The Miller’s Tale, love isn’t anything, but sex with the man in the story. In accordance with Chaucer, the complication with marriage is that men are consumed by sexual desire and are easily abused by women like The Wife of Bath. As noticed, The Miller’s Tale is all about adultery. “Just like men, the wives have secrets, as does God”, says the Miller. Both have information that the other do not know about that are sacred and better left unsaid.
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.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale.” From The Riverside Chaucer, Third Edition. Ed. Larry D. Benson. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.
One of the most interesting and widely interpreted characters in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is the Wife of Bath. She has had five different husbands and openly admits to marrying the majority of them for their money. The wife appears to be more outspoken and independent than most women of medieval times, and has therefore been thought to symbolize the cause of feminism; some even refer to her as the first actual feminist character in literature. Readers and scholars probably argue in favor of this idea because in The Canterbury Tales, she uniquely gives her own insight and opinions on how relations between men and women should be carried out. Also, the meaning of her tale is that virtually all women want to be granted control over themselves and their relationship with their husbands, which seems to convince people that the Wife of Bath should be viewed as some sort of revolutionary feminist of her time. This idea, however, is incorrect. The truth is that the Wife of Bath, or Alisoun, merely confirms negative stereotypes of women; she is deceitful, promiscuous, and clandestine. She does very little that is actually empowering or revolutionary for women, but instead tries to empower herself by using her body to gain control over her various husbands. The Wife of Bath is insecure, cynical towards men in general, and ultimately, a confirmation of misogynistic stereotypes of women.
“The Wife of Bath’s Tale” in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is a story about a widow who took a pilgrimage to the town of Canterbury with an array of dynamic characters whose diverse backgrounds allowed them to share their stories with one another to make the long journey more interesting. The widow named Alisoun in the “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” told the tale of her experiences with her five past husbands and a story about a knight and a witch. She truly believed that for a woman to have a happy life she would need to gain dominion over a man; however one could assume this was programmed into her by her influential mother and her own religious doctrines. Accordingly, Alisoun argued that the woman must control everything in order to have a happy marriage; however, her life experience and the story she shared should tell her otherwise.
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.
Geoffrey Chaucer used his characters in Canterbury Tales as a way to illustrate stereotype of medieval society. The Wife of Bath, one of the pilgrims in Canterbury Tales demonstrates an authoritative role in marriage The Wife of Bath’s unusual behavior and attitudes can be interpreted by two motives: feminist ideals or sexual indulgence. When considering feminist viewpoints, it can be concluded that the Wife of Bath’s behavior is motivated by sexual indulgence.