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Characters in wife of bath
Marriage in ancient cultures
Characters in wife of bath
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The Wife of Bath, Dame Alice is quite a spiteful woman even though she desires only a few simple things in life; power and control. Through her prologue and tale, she makes mirror images of herself , which reflects the person who she really is.
Dame Alice desires the obvious in life, but what she most desires above all is being more powerful than her man, her spouse, and her lover. In a relationship, she wishes to be dominant, the one who has the last to say, the one who has control over all things in the relationship. This can be first seen in her prologue, "I'll have a husband yet who shall be both my debtor and my slave and bear his tribulation to the grave upon his flesh, as long as I'm his wife. For mine shall be the power all his life over his proper body, and not he…"(55-59). It is then shown again in her tale when knight returns the castle and fulfills the task assigned by the queen, "a woman wants the self-same sovereignty over her husband as over her lover, and master him; he must not be above her" (174-176). Yet another example of Dame Alice's wish to be dominant is presented later in the tale told by her. The old hag, after marrying the knight, gives him a choice. It was either to have her old and ugly but faithful or young and pretty but wonder off. "You have two choices; which one will you try? To have me old and ugly till I die, but still loyal, true, and humble wife that will never displease you all her life, or would you rather I were young and pretty and chance your arm what happens in the city where friends will visit you because of me, yes, and on other places too, maybe."(309-316)
By comparing the Wife of Bath's prologue to her tale, it is quite obvious that Dame Alice wants to be the old hag. In some aspects, Dame Alice can be said to be jealous of the old hag. After all, the hag was given power and dominance over her husband. In Dame Alice's true life it was not completely true. The husbands that Dame Alice had, "three of them were good and two were bad." (92) The three that she had were called 'good' because they "were rich and old…"(93) Dame Alice had complete control over them.
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.
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.
Lewis Carroll demonstrates paradoxes within Alice and Wonderland as Alice is tossed within an entirely different world. Yet one of the greatest paradoxes is the transformation of Alice over the course of the novel as well as the transformation of the duchess. Alice begins as an ignorant child; she has difficulties in morphing to the logic and needs of Wonder...
Wife of Bath. Her character is noted to be strong and bold and we learn
Alice’s failure to understand the “native” culture, and her insistence on imposing her own norms and values ultimately culminates in a life-threatening situation.” (Binova “Underground Alice:” the politics of wonderland). Alice is the colonised in the situation with the Queen of Hearts. When she is introduced to the Queen her evil nature is revealed as she orders “Off with her head!” (Carroll 96). However, she is contrasted to Alice’s good nature while she shouts “Nonsense!” ( Carrol 96). The theme of chaos and confusion is brought forward as they play croquet all at once with noises all around and even in the court where everyone is expected to be civil. Although the Queen, as a character reinforces adulthood, subversion emerges again by Alice standing up for herself at this time. Nearing the end of her dream, she stands up against the Queen at court but it dream ends without a resolution. Maria Lassen-Seger says in ( “Subversion of Authority”: In “Alice’s Adventures of Wonderland”), “the relationship between the child and the adult is an impossible power relation in which the child is marginalised and considered powerless, thus, the adults suggest in their books what a child ought to be, what values and images it should accept.” The Queen at this point in the dream would have been the
The Wife of Bath, therefore, can be seen as a woman who has taken her understanding of the teachings of the Bible, and held fast to certain notions that can help her succeed as a common person in a period where social position and wealth are usually a factor of birth, not personal effort. The notions of the right and freedom to make decisions, especially those regarding marriage and personal actions, allow her to travel, to have some nice possessions, and to become a strong, confident woman against the odds. Although she isn’t perfect, she has the desire, the underlying humility, and the understanding of how to be a better person—if only she had made that decision.
In the Wife of Bath’s portrait she is described as heavy, bluff woman that is industrious, a talented weaver, her five husbands and her pilgrimages to Jerusalem. There is some reference to her potential promiscuity in youth but it is glossed over.
In the Wife of Baths Prologue, her true colors unfurl which gives the reader the sense of who the Wife of Bath is and where her mind is in terms of the gender inequality. Her prologue also lays down the path to the direction her tale is going to go. The wife of Bath makes it clear that more than anyone it is her that has experience in the field of marriage just from her tone one can see she is a woman with a desire for authority. The Wife's Prologue is the framework that allows room for making distinctions on all the issue women in the Middle Ages face and indeed with her hearty an well define details she is left to be an unforgettable icon of the Canterbury tales . It is suspected that the Wife of Bath feels strongly on the notion...
The parallels that have been presented show that there are not just similarities in the tale and the Wife’s life, the prologue and the tale are the real and the ideal way that the Wife sees her world. She, like many women of her time and ours, wants control over her husbands and will do what it takes to gain it. She tells us how she gained control over her husbands, even when it lead to the oldest trick in the book, withholding “pleasures”. Then she backed up her desire for sovereignty by telling us in her tale that it was not just herself who wanted this dominance, but every woman wants the same, even if they don’t know it. Finally she idealizes what she wants from a husband with the tale of the knight and the hag. If only it were as simple as the tale told.
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.
Leicester, H. Marshall, Jr. "Of a Fire in the Dark: Public and Private Feminism in The Wife of Bath's Tale." Women's Studies 11.1-2 (1984): 157-178. Literature Resource Center. Web. 1 March 2014.
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’s Tale", women most desire sovereignty over men in relationships. In other words, the power to have dominance over men is the one thing women most desire. I agree with the ideas that in relationship women wish to be dominant over the opposite sex. The only way such power is earned or give is when the man is in a situation where the woman must bail him out of trouble.
When the story of Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland began Alice seemed very childlike as she was distracted easily and acted very curiously as most children tend to. These characteristics led her
There are some flaws within the plot of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, mainly stemming from the changing of the story and characters. No character within the tale remains constant, the only one through the whole tale with us is Alice. The main theme within the story is Alice trying to get home, only to end up on trial in the Red Queen’s kingdom. This is the turning point for Alice. Her character develops greatly, making her turn from the partially taciturn child, to the able-minded young adult. “ 'Who cares for you? ' said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) 'You 're nothing but a pack of cards! '” (Carroll, 117). Alice has the gall to stand up to these playing card guards that are trying to cut off her head, by order of the queen. She realizes that these cards could not harm her, at her normal height. They were after all, just a pack of