Canterbury Tales Women

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Recommended: Medieval society's view of women in the canterbury tales

Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales provides valuable insights on the roles women, their experiences, and the strategies they embraced to appropriate their quota of socio-political influence available to them during the Middle Ages. The text exhibits various discourses on female status and how it is projected, specifically through the use of women characters. Chaucer illustrates a spectrum of feminine ideals during the Middle Ages, individuals who fall short of these ideals, and solutions of those who seek happiness. However, the context women are portrayed in varies, whereas they are either idealized and worshipped—or loathed and monstrous. For instance, in The Knights Tale, Emelye is a beautiful noblewoman who exists only …show more content…

For example, her blissful attitude, will to remain a virgin, and symbol of courtly love represent women who were admired during the Middle Ages. In contrast, within The Wife of Bath, the Wife is a knowledgeable woman who forces misogynist views of women, but is revealed as a violent, deceitful, and indiscreet character. The wife displays a deranged and power-thirsty attitude, where she uses sex as a weapon for her own self-interest and egotism. Unlike Emelye, The Wife of Bath’s manipulative behavior, promiscuity, and deceitfulness universally portrays women as being fickle monstrosities who crave sovereignty. Emelye and the Wife of Bath are two characters that demonstrate how Middle English literature shows contradictory attitudes toward women, because they display opposing values, behavior’s, and physical …show more content…

Within the text, Palomon compares her to a God, saying “the fairness of that lady that I see, yonder in the garden roaming to and fro, I know not she is whether a women or Goddess”. Another example of how she is an idealized women within the Middle Ages, is her virtuous approach to love and lust. Throughout the tale, Emelye is extremely passive to the Knights desires, “her character is viewed exclusively from the outside for a long time, her thoughts, when we learn them, are very different from the thoughts projected on to her”. Emelye did not necessarily have to be single, nor did her relationship with her lover need to be physical. Not only is she admired for her beauty, but also for her freedom and divine connection with nature. She represents liberty and beauty, because “everything about Emelye is flower-like and fresh, as she strolls around the garden, singing, we probably hear an echo of paradise, the springtime of the human race”. The two young knights fall in love with her not only for her allure, but for her blissfulness of her freedom as she dances around the garden. From within prison they fall in love with a person who seems to incarnate a condition the exact opposite of their

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