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Canterbury tales analysis essay
Canterbury tales critical analysis
Canterbury tales analysis essay
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“You’ll never be, no matter how you scold, Master of both my body and my gold” (Chaucer, 158). Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem, The Canterbury Tales, follows many pilgrims and their travel from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas. Along the way the pilgrims share their stories, in hopes of telling the best tale. The Wife of Bath, one of the pilgrims, tells a story of a knight and his interesting quest in repentance for his sin. The Wife of Bath is a seamstress, known for her experience in marriage and her previous relationships to many different men. She is rebellious in not abiding by normal social standards of marriage, a strong advocate for the use and control of sexual power, and critical of the concept of virginity and why
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.
wifhood wol I use myn instrument/As freely as my Makere hath it sent" (Chaucer 155).
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.
The dominance of men in the Middle Ages is unethical, irrational, and dangerous; women are given few rights and the opportunity to earn rights is non-existent. The dictates to the dominance is formed by the internal combination of man’s personal desire and religious interference. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s, The Canterbury Tales, the combined perspectives’ on a haughty Pardoner and non-subservient wife is the stronghold of separation in moral roles. The moral roles between men and women are exemplified in the rankings of religious hierarchy for men are at the top and women towards the bottom. Even prestigious women, ones with noble connections, are subservient to men, but contradictorily have religious affiliations. The “Wife of Bath’s Tale” is a perfect example of defying man’s dominance and the “Pardoner’s Tale”, a problematic reasoning of why selfishness connects moreover to the manipulation. The frailties of religious reasoning however, will cause The Pardoner and the Wife of Bath to be separated from society’s morals.
The Wife of Bath starts with her prologue, which is more of just her background. She tells of her five husbands. She talks about how the first three were good. The "good" she is talking about is one of being rich, old, and she had control. They could not satisfy her need for attention of intimacy. The last two were "bad" meaning that the fourth husband had a mistress and the fifth beat her. They were though very in tune with her need for intimacy. She talks about how she knows how to control men to get what she wants. She says that a person can control him by controlling the intercourse. She says she know this from her experience in life. She will also try to use references to other works to make her look more reliable. She talks of her fifth husband who had a book of works that showed unfaithful, superficial, evil creature, and who undermined their husbands. He uses this as a form of punishment. He would read this to her to make her feel bad about what she had done.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Canterbury tales: The Prologue”. Our Literary Heritage. Ed. Desmond Pacey. 4th ed. Montreal, Que.: Mcgraw-Hill Ryerson ltd., 1982.
Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” is an important part of his most famed work, The Canterbury Tales. One of the most respected highly analyzed of all of the tales, this particular one is important both for its character development and its prevailing themes. It seamlessly integrates ideas on society at that time with strong literary development. This work stands the test of time both because of its literary qualities and because of what it can teach us about the role of women in late Medieval society.
Many pilgrims in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales held a religious position. Some of these people’s personal ideas have caused debates and criticism over Chaucer’s opinion of the Catholic Church. Critics have discussed the ideas that were presented both subtly and openly. Two of the pilgrims and their tales will be discussed: the Prioress and the Pardoner. Both of these tales offer points of criticism in the Catholic Church.
Chaucer's "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale" is a medieval legend that paints a portrait of strong women finding love and themselves in the direst of situations. It is presented to the modern day reader as an early tale of feminism showcasing the ways a female character gains power within a repressive, patriarchal society. Underneath the simplistic plot of female empowerment lies an underbelly of anti-feminism. Sometimes this is presented blatantly to the reader, such as the case of Janekin's reading aloud from "The Book of Wikked Wives" (The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale 691). However, there are many other instances of anti-feminism that may not scream so loudly to the reader. This is shown in the disappearance of the rape victim and the happy ending for the Knight. While the overall story is one of supposed feminism shown through women's empowerment, there are many aspects of "The Wife of Bath" that are anti-feminist in nature.
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.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Wife of Bath Tale.” The Canterbury Tales. Trans. R.M. Lumiansky. NY: Bantam, 2006. 184-192. Print.
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, (written c. 1387), is a richly varied compilation of fictional stories as told by a group of twenty-nine persons involved in a religious pilgrimage to Canterbury, England during the fourteenth century. This journey is to take those travelers who desire religious catharsis to the shrine of the holy martyr St. Thomas a Becket of Canterbury. The device of a springtime pilgrimage provided Chaucer with a diverse range of characters and experiences, with him being both a narrator and an observer. Written in Middle English, each tale depicts parables from each traveler.
Many critics throughout the years have given the Wife of Bath a title of that of a feminist. She is a strong-willed and dominant woman who gets what she wants when she wants it, by manipulating her husbands into feeling bad for things that they didn’t do, or by saying things that put them to utter shame. No man has ever been able to give an exact answer when she asks to know how many husbands a woman may have in her life...
The wife of bath strongly argued in favour of female “maistrye.” She argued this in the prologue and used the tale to bring the message home. Her arguments are weakened however by the destructive and careless behaviour of the Wife of Bath. She openly laughs at them (“I laugh whan I thinke”) when she thinks of how she made her husbands toil at night. She doesn’t seem to regret the...
The world-renowned Canterbury Tales by the great Geoffrey Chaucer aims to magnify the controversial social injustices of gender roles in the medieval time period that consequently flow into today’s current modern society. One of the greatest social standing issues addressed throughout the poem includes the institution of marriage, and the particular viewpoint held by the character named the Wife of Bath. The Wife of Bath is notably shamed by her potential suitors and moralist peers, for her devious actions of taking advantage of her former husbands throughout her lengthy five marriages. However, Chaucer actually invites the audience to give a closer look at the overall flawed instuition of marriage