In "The Clerk's Tale" and "The Wife of Bath's Tale " from Geoffrey
Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, characters are demanding, powerful and
manipulating in order to gain obedience from others. From all of The
Canterbury Tales, "The Clerks Tale" and "The Wife of Baths Tale" are the
two most similar tales. These tales relate to each other in the terms of
obedience and the treatment of women. "The Wife of Bath Tale" consists of
one woman who has complete control over her husbands. It evolves the idea
that a woman is more powerful and controlling in a relationship. She
intimidates her husbands to do things and treat her in a certain ways so
that they would buy her material things and favors. "The Clerks Tale"
supports almost the opposite idea about women. It mentions that the man
has complete power in the relationship and the woman must obey everything
that the husband says. Such is the case with Walter and Griselda. Walter
is demanding and controlling over Griselda. She does whatever he says and
she lacks her own opinion. One difference between these tales however is
that "The Clerks Tale" is a very unrealistic story, whereas "The Wife of
Baths Tale" is a more practical story and would have the possibility of
taking place.
Between the two stories, the Wife of Bath and Walter are both
characters who are the most demanding in order to gain obedience. Both
characters demand love, a sign of obedience to them. Walter tells Griselda
that the only way they will marry is if she promises to obey his commands.
He says "you love me as I know and would obey, being my leige-man born and
faithful to whatever ple...
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...and the General Prologue. Ed. V.A. Kolve. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1989.
---------"The Wife of Bath's Tale." The Canterbury Tales: Nine Tales and the General Prologue. Ed. V.A. Kolve. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1989.
Levy, Bernard. "The Meanings of the Clerk's Tale." Chaucer and the Craft of Fiction. Ed. Leigh Arrathoon. Rochester, MI: Solaris, 1986. 385-403.
Leicester, Jr., H. Marshall. "Of a fire in the dark: Public and Private Feminism in the Wife of Bath's Tale." Women's Studies 11.1-2 (1985): 157-78.
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It is first important to understand the background of both The Wife of Bath and Margery Kempe’s stories. The Wife of Bath was a character created by Geoffrey Chaucer who is radically different from the nonfictional character of Margery Kempe. The Wife of Bat...
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 two most intriguing leadership styles presented in the readings were transformational leadership and servant leadership. Both leadership styles are relationship-oriented, that is, in order for these leadership styles to be effective, positive relationships must exist between leaders and followers. Also, both leadership styles reject the role of leader as being reserved for those individuals in designated positions of power, but rather a quality that may be exhibited by any individual (Kelly, 2012, pp. 10-11). However, the differing goals of each leadership style is the seemingly critical factor that separates transformational leadership from servant leadership.
“The Clerk’s Tale.” The Canterbury Tales. New York: Viking, 2009. . Web. Jan & Feb. 2012.
O'Brien, Timothy D. "Troubling Waters: The Feminine and the Wife of Bath's Performance" Modern Language Quarterly, v53. (1992): 377(15).
love you know more,” are the exact words used. This means that this man can come back
Leicester, Jr., H. Marshall. "Public and Private Feminism in the Wife of Bath's Tale." Women's Studies 11.1-2 (1985): 157-78.
Servant Leadership, found in Chapter Ten of the text Leadership: Theory and Practice, is a paradoxical approach to leadership. It begins with the innate desire to serve first, and then lead through servant hood. Servant Leadership, originating in the early 1970s, is similar to the skills and styles approach, focusing on leadership from the leader’s viewpoint and his behavior under the leadership. Under this style of leadership, the leaders are considerate of the followers needs, empathizing with and having compassion for the followers. A servant leader feels a social responsibility to the less privileged and is concerned with inequality among the followers. Through servant leadership, a servant leader will attempt to correct these social injustices and by enabling and empowering the followers while helping the followers in developing valuable personal skills. Servant leaders are ethical, projecting strong moral behavior towards the followers, taking leadership paths that serve the greater good of an organization, the community and even society as a whole.
A Transformational leader would elevate the interests of their employees, they would generate awareness and acceptance of the goal for the group. (Bass, B. M. ,1991) An example of transformational leadership in a hypothetical situation would be if there was a monthly goal set for each individual on the team and the leader finished his goals first then went on to help the rest of the team, taking extra time to see every employee as an individual. Another situation would be if a team member had a death in the family and the leader would provide emotional support for the employee as well as rallying the rest of the team to console the team member. Napoleon declared that an army of rabbits commanded by a lion could do better than an army of lions commanded by a rabbit (Bass, B. M. ,1991). The world is full of transformational leaders but we need more. Transformational leadership can be learned, and it can and should be the subject of management training and development (Bass, B. M. ,1991). Next, we will look at Servant
The Wife of Bath Prologue and Tale. Geoffery Chaucer. The Middle Ages, Volume 1A. Eds. Christopher Baswell and Anne Howland Schotter. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Fourth ed. Gen.eds David Damrosch, and Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson-Longman, 2010. 375-408. Print.
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Being a leader is treating people the way you want to be treated. Leadership is being the individual you are while working on influencing others. Being a good leader consists of several characteristics. (Hunter, 1998, p. XVII). Some characteristics include empathy, committing to the growth of others, and most of all, being a good listener. Leadership roles aren’t always consisting of individuals at the top of organizations, people aren’t always good leaders, and it’s an influence process. . Hunter (1998) goes into great detail throughout his writing, that the foundation of servant leadership style is not directly based upon power, however more relates to authority. This paper explores the various characteristics of servant
Mitchell, J. Allan. (2005). Chaucer's Clerk's Tale and the Question of Ethical Monstrosity. Studies in Philology. Chapel Hill: Winter 2005. Vol.102, Iss. 1; pg. 1, 26 pgs