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Why was marriage a big topic in the Canterbury tales
Insight into canterbury tales
Canterbury tales analysis
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When reading Canterbury Tales, I enjoyed most “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” actually most enjoyable part is the prologue to the wife’s tale because I think Chaucer, pretty smartly mocks and criticises society in the prologue. It seems to me that Chaucer tries to show how society can be hypocrite. On the other hand, the Wife’s ideas about marriage and the way she supports her ideas are really funny to read. In the prologue, Chaucer describes Wife of Bath as a lustful woman. Wife of Bath also herself admits in the Prologue that she’s buried five husbands and she has been marrying since she was twelve years old. Besides, she is now looking for his sixth husband. In addition, these are the numbers of the marriages she had at the church. She does not give explicit details about her current and former lovers. Because of her various marriages, she thinks that she had to defense herself and she tries to justify her actions by quoting from the bible. Furthermore, she continues her debate by saying God would not have given men and women genitals only for discrimination. She can not simply say “ I enjoy the company of men,” by quoting from religious sources, she legitimize herself from being labeled by society. She knows that if she gives religious aspects to her actions she …show more content…
That is what she offers to people who wants to be successful of in marriage. She tells with details how she accused his husbands with betrayal. How she gained control over them and took their assets. And she asserts the idea if men want to be happy they should give the control to the women for supporting that idea, the Wife tells a story about a knight who reluctantly chooses to marry an old woman. And the old lady returns his choice by remaining faithful and at the same time for taking her husband’s control in his hands she becomes young and beautiful and they live happily ever
The story of Dame Ragnell and "The Wife of Bath's Tale" are works that are very similar yet have differences that set the two apart. The most obvious comparison between the two works is the dilemma faced in each. In both stories a man's life is at stake and all he has to do to be spared is to answer one question. That question has to do with what women really want. Another similarity involves the outcome of each story. The differences between the two stories are revealed in the plots. The differences that stand out the most are the circumstances leading up to the question being asked and the attitude of the person that has to marry the old hag to get the answer to the question. There are many small differences between the stories but they are not as important as the two mentioned.
How are men and women depicted in The Tale of Genji, The Lays, and The Wife of Bath’s Tale?
The wife of baths tale is a very lusty and boisterous women. She sees absolutely nothing wrong with having five different husbands. She feels as though her marriages are just giving her more experience. She obeys the bibles words by “going forth and multiplying” after each husbands passing. She feels as though the sexual organs are “made for both pleasure and functional purposes” and she is willing to have sex whenever her man wishes to. She doesn’t think sex is just for procreation.
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.
In the words of the Broadview Anthology’s introduction to the Wife of Bath, she is “a sexually experienced cynic who teaches young people the tricks of love…. The Wife’s history and the literary shape of her prologue conform to many of the traditional misogynistic stereotypes found in her husband’s book” (Broadview 298). Why would Chaucer write such a clever portrayal of personal pleasure through the eyes of a woman, and yet design her to possess every quality so despised and abhorred within her so-called lifetime? Because the audience of this poem would probably include wives, and because everything the Wife describes is almost laughably vulgar, it can be understood that this poem would not be interpreted literally and women would instead be forced to listen to an account about female power, desire, and pleasure written, unfortunately, as cruel satire of their
The Wife of Bath’s is a hypocrite with wisdom and advice that would be most helpful to her in her situation completely in control over her marriages and how they affected her. Even through her prologue she “hints at the erotic activity (Cox)” Which is strange, especially in a time when women only job was to keep their husbands happy and have children. So one must ask oneself how did Chaucer intend to portray the wife of Bath’s?
"The Wife of Bath's Prologue." The Canterbury Tales. New York: Viking, 2009. . Web. Jan. & Feb. 2012.
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.
In The Canterbury Tales Wife of Bath’s Tale, the author incorporates major events in the text that relate to power in many different ways. In addition, in the text the author illustrates the sovereignty that women have over man in various ways. Furthermore, there is power in knowledge because with knowledge there is freedom. Also, in the text a character loses power over the external events that occurring in their lives. In The Wife of Bath’s Tale, the author illustrates a woman’s power through authority, marriage, and punishment.
“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.
In the Wife of Bath, the Wife’s prologue is very lengthy and has her information about her life. The prologue explains the Wife’s theories about experiences versus authority. The Wife of Bath have already had five husband, which means she had enough experience on marriage to make her an expert. She is not ashamed of her life or marriages and feels she should not be criticize for her behavior. The Wife reference several biblical quotes to justify her views and explains she does not feel God should punish those who marry more than once. As the prologue goes on, the Wife of Bath describes her marriages and tells what women most desire in their relationship. The thing that women most desire is to have complete control over their husbands.
The Wife of Bath had a strong argument in favour of marriage but is easy to fault. Her argument that marriage grows more virgins, while correct makes us wonder why she bore no children. And she also mentions the fact that “in wyfhood I wol use myn instrument” but her marriage did not seem to have stopped her from restraining her “Chamber of Venus from a good felawe.” The Wife of Bath confuses bigamy with remarriage and manipulates the arguments for remarriage to suit her purpose. Chaucer gives the Wife of Bath’s arguments less credibility