Theme Of Rape In Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales, written by the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer, is a poem comprised of a collection of stories, which skilfully critique major aspects and attitudes of European society during the Middle Ages. Although truly horrific and atrocious, the rape of women was a prevalent occurrence within Middle Aged society. In The Wife of Bath’s Tale, Chaucer tells the story of a lustful knight who came across a young woman and “spite of all she said / By very force he took her maidenhead (Chaucer, 282).” In the tale, it is clear that Chaucer recognizes rape as a violent crime that should “[condemn] the knight to lose his head (Chaucer, 282).” At the end of this tale, however, Chaucer grants not only freedom of death to the knight, but a blissful,

Through the help of an old woman described as a “fouler-looking creature (Chaucer, 285)” by making a deal that he would do anything she required of him, the knight was able to give the correct answer to the Queen’s question. According to the knight, as told by the old woman, what a woman desires most is “ the self-same sovereignty / Over her husband as over her lover, / And master him; he must not be above her (Chaucer, 286).” Thus, the Queen declared the knight freedom from the punishment of death, while he was forced to accept the old woman’s request for his hand in marriage. While not a formal punishment, it was “torture that his wife looked foul (Chaucer, 287).” This punishment of marriage, however, to an old, “‘abominably plain,’” “‘poor,’” and “‘low-bred’” woman was only temporal. In order to “‘fufil [the knight’s] worldly appetites, she presents the anguished knight a choice on whether she remains old and ugly, but loyal or young and pretty, but attractive to other men. Rather than making the choice that pleased him, the knight left the choice up to the old woman saying “‘You may make the choice yourself, for the provision / Of what may be agreeable and rich / In honour to us both, I don’t care which; / Whatever pleases you suffices me (Chaucer, 291).” Happy to have been given a choice, the old

Because of gender, women are objectified, sexualized, and therefore blamed for the crimes committed against them by men. While men are lightly punished and sometimes even awarded for such an atrocity, the voices of women are drowned as they openly triumph. In The Wife of Bath’s Tale, Chaucer hoped to give voice to silent oppressed, stating that their one, true desire is that of “‘the self-same sovereignty / Over her husband as over her lover, / And master him; he must not be above her (Chaucer,