Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is comprised of several different tales being told by various narrators, such as The Miller’s Tale and the The Wife of Bath’s Prologue. First, The Miller’s Tale is part of “a genre known as “fabliau”: a short story in verse that deals satirically, often grossly and fantastically as well as hilariously, with intrigues and deceptions about sex or money” (Chaucer 264). This tale involves a carpenter, the carpenter’s wife, Alisoun, a poor astrology student, Nicholas, and a church clerk, Absolon, where the wife and the student try to keep their relationship a secret from her husband, while the clerk pines for the her. Second, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue consists of a woman who “asserts her female “experience” …show more content…
She tells about her different marriages she has had since the age of twelve and the control that she has over her husbands. In The Wife of Bath’s Tale, it consists of King Arthur, Arthur’s queen, a knight, and a older woman. In both tales, Alisoun and the Wife of Bath are similar in their disregard for their husbands, but they do contrast in how they are portrayed, power they have over men, and whether or not they had committed adultery. Both Alisoun and the Wife of Bath have a similarity both disregarding their husbands. First, Alisoun does not have any respect for her husband, John, when she makes the decision to have an affair with another man. For example, “Nicholas gan mercy for to crye, /And spak so faire, and profred him so faste, / That she hir love him graunted ate laste…” (Chaucer 268). She does not even think of her husband when she makes the decision when she grants Nicholas her love. Also, Alisoun does not take into consideration of how her actions with Nicholas can affect her marriage with John. There …show more content…
The Wife of Bath is much older than the carpenter’s wife. Alisoun is described as “Fair was this younge wif, and therwithal / As any weasel hir body gent and smal” (Chaucer 267). She is young, around the age of eighteen and her body is slim and small similar to a weasel. Alisoun’s age makes her seem naive in comparison to the Wife of Bath who is much more experienced than her, such as in marriage and love, in which the Wife of Bath who was young when she first married is onto her fifth husband, who is twenty years old, by the age of forty (Chaucer 295). Also, the Wife of Bath is more open about how many times she was been married. For instance, she states, “Housbondes at chirch dore I have had five,” but she does mention in the third stanza in the prologue that it won’t be her last when she says “Welcome the sixte whan that evere he shall” (Chaucer 282). She is not ashamed that she has had that many husbands in a span of twenty plus years. Next, the Wife of Bath is seen as a woman that has had power over her husbands. For example, she states, “I governed hem so wel after my lawe” which depicts the control she had over them in their marriages and she treats them how she sees fit (Chaucer 287). In contrast to Alisoun who does not exert any power over Nicholas or her
The irony comes in when Chaucer adds that she is a gap-toothed woman in scarlet red leggings, who has been married five times. This description does not sum up with the image of a hard working, devoted Christian woman according to the doctrine of the church. Chaucer's physical description is important because it makes the Wife of Bath more acknowledged ; she reeks of feminine
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.
The image of the woman in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue is depicted by Chaucer to be “barley wheat” in a town and civilization lusting for whole white wheat or virginity (Chaucer 1711). The woman has married many men and in doing so forgotten the true value of the Christian faith and now believes worldly influence can overpower the scriptures of the Bible, “can you show in plain words that Almighty God forbade us marriage? Or where did he command virginity?” (Chaucer 1709). Jackie Shead analyzes the prologue and states, “it begins by manipulating authoritative texts--a pre-emptive strike to justify the Wife's marital history and her single-minded pursuit of self-gratification” (Shead). The possibility of the Wife of B...
In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Chaucer opens his story by telling about a certain amount of people who are going on a pilgrimage. The Wife of Bath stands out more compared to the other characters that are involved in these stories. In Chaucer’s “General Prologue,” the Wife of Bath was described as a woman who was talented and a flamboyant person who shows she is not fearful. She is also referenced as a woman who is powerful and gets anything she desires. She has a lot of experience in love and sex. She shows off her clothes with evident pride, her face is wreathed in heavy cloth, her stockings are a fine scarlet color, and the leather in her shoes is soft and fresh. In “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue” the Wife of Bath discusses marriage, power and sex. The Wife of Bath is an selfish an authoritative woman.
The main character, Alison, or the wife of Bath, is representative of most of the feminist ideals in the work. She is strong, independent, and to be respected as a woman of great courage. Alison has suffered a great deal in her lifetime, indicative of life for women at this time. She has survived five husbands; some of whom beat her, others were unfaithful. She was married off at an early age of twelve and from then on knew what marriage was about: money. "Marriage is the key to survival, and that is what Alisoun seeks and finds" (Carruthers 214), argues Mary Carruthers, justifying Alison's five marriages. Alison equates money with power. With this power comes respect and honor.
The ’Wife of Bath’s Prologue’ raises the question of marriage. The marriage and the role of wife have momentous status in the Middle Ages. It embodies many patriarchal values which creates a full medieval culture and society. Lee Patterson argues that some historicist readings of Wife of Bath see medieval marriage as a thoroughly inhumane system, ”organized by males to serve economic and political ends, with the woman treated as a useful, child bearing appendage to the land or goods being exchanged.” (Beidle 138) This reading means that the marriage is no more as important, sacred and precious as people think that was to be at that time. It destroys the society, decreases the intimacy and highlights the importance of property and wealth in the Middle Ages. The Wife speaks about her memories of the past. She expresses nostalgia with her words. She tells that she has five husbands, three of them were old but rich and the other two are younger. On the one hand, the three older husbands provided her strong financial...
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.
The Wife of Bath Prologue and Tale tells about a woman who’s been married previous of times. She is described as Chaucer’s most delightful creature, although the Clerk and Pearson found her to be the most outrageous. She believed the woman should be head of household, nondependent on a man, woman should have the same equal opportunities as the men, and as soon as the men saw it that way, men and women would be happier in their marriage. She begins to describe her positions in her tale “The Wife of Bath” to why she stands affirms by it.
“The Wife of Bath” begins with a prologue in which Alison shares information about her life and her experiences. She explains that since she has already had five husband’s she has enough experience and knowledge to discuss the relationship between husband and wife. She tries to explain that though others believe it is wrong that she has been married five times she sees nothing wrong with it. No one has ever given her an exact reply on how many husbands a woman may have in her lifetime. Therefore, she does not see why it bothers so many people. She uses reference from the Bible to condone her actions. Such as the command to go forth and multiply. She also points out that many men in the Bible including Abraham, Jacob, and Solomon had many wives. And uses St. Paul’s caution is that it is
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 her prologue the wife of Bath's talked about her five marriages, and how she gained sovereignty over all of her husband. She claimed by giving woman the power, marriage will be more better. On the other hand all of her husbands of whom she had power form eventually died. Although the wife of bath's always speak of her mastery and her skill in gaining sovereignty over her husband. Her fifth husband, who she really loved, did not give in easily. He used to beat her and he also reads to her from the book that he wrote about how the woman are wicked and how they are easy to get.
In the Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Chaucer illustrates the different perspective between men and women on the concept of marriage and love. In The Wife of Bath’s tale, it is shown the woman appreciating marriage and wanting to be able to love a man unconditionally as where in The Miller’s Tale, love isn’t anything, but sex with the man in the story. In accordance with Chaucer, the complication with marriage is that men are consumed by sexual desire and are easily abused by women like The Wife of Bath. As noticed, The Miller’s Tale is all about adultery. “Just like men, the wives have secrets, as does God”, says the Miller. Both have information that the other do not know about that are sacred and better left unsaid.
In the Wife of Bath’s prologue readers begin to see a glimpse of how strong-willed this woman is, especially as she speaks about her beliefs regarding the Bible. At line 35, she says “Lo, here the wise king daun Salomon:/I trowe he hadde wives many oon,” indicating that she is well read and able to defend her five marriages using evidence from the Bible. The Wife is also sex-positive as she believes that if God had not wanted people to have sex, then they would not have the parts for it and she can find no evidence in the Bible
The “Wife of Bath’s Prologue” shows that Alisoun was empowered by the ability use her sexuality. As she introduces her tale, Alisoun makes it clear that she sees marriage as a way to gain money and status, “Of fyve husbondes
In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, an eclectic mix of people gathers together at Tabard Inn to begin a pilgrimage to Canterbury. In the General Prologue, the readers are introduced to each of these characters. Among the pilgrims are the provocative Wife of Bath and the meek Pardoner. These two characters both demonstrate sexuality, in very different ways. Chaucer uses the Wife and the Pardoner to examine sexuality in the medieval period.