The Wife of Bath

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The Wife of Bath

The Wife of Bath:An Illusion of Reality

When one thinks of marriage, the most common

ideal is equality of

control among man and woman. Chaucer incorporates two opposing

viewpoints on marriage in The Canterbury Tales. The Wife of

Baths tale, in which she says that one spouse, preferably

the wife, must have mastery over the other. On the other

hand, The Franklins tale disapproves of the Wife of Baths

philosophy by saying that equality and trust are essential

in holding a marriage together as expressed here:

.... And to enhance the bliss of

both of their lives. He freely gave his promise as a knight

that he would never darken her delight by exercising his

authority against her will or showing jealousy but would obey

her in all with simple trust as any lover of a lady must...(427)

Now, the question is, Can the typical reader

find the Wife of Bath

a trustworthy person. David Parker, a literary critic,

believes that The Wife of Bath Should not be fully

trusted, due to the contradictory things she said about her

relationships with her five husbands in her prologue. With

the first three husbands, the Wife was happy because she was

married to wealthy men, but was unhappy because they were old

and could not fulfill her sexual desires. On the other hand,

with her last two husbands, the Wife got her sexual desires

fulfilled, but theres a huge question mark about her mastery

of her younger husbands. Her relationship with her fifth, and

last husband, is a prime example of this contradiction. When

John, her fifth husband, hit her it was apparent to the

reader, and to me, that she wasnt in the very blissful

marriage as seen here

...Then like a maddened lion,

with a yell he started up and smote me on the head and down

I fell upon the floor for dead. And when he saw how

motionless I lay he was aghast and would have flown away, but

in the end, I started coming to....(297)

Here, its evident to me that the Wife was

very submissive in this

marriage and that her husband is the one who shows the

mastery. What didnt surprise me at the end of her prologue

was the fact that everything was sweet and rosy and that

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