The wife of bath asserts a positive view of women even though social stereotypes of women in the time period were quite negative. By looking at the character of the wife I get the impression that she may have been a feminist even before the idea of feminism came to exist. By saying that she is a feminist I mean that she is a woman that is comfortable with being herself no matter what criticism comes to her. I believe this because she defends her sexual activities without letting the criticism she gets phase her in any way, she isn’t the stereotypical woman of that time period, and in some parts of the prologue she blames men for the stereotypes about women.
In the prologue of The Wife of Bath by Chaucer a woman (the wife of bath) is portrayed as promiscuous. Just as
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Every woman is seen as not good enough and the wife sees this. She is also a first hand witness to seeing what men think of women. The wife’s fifth husband, “every night and day in his custume,/ whan he hadde leiser and vacacioun”(698-699), would read a “book of wikked wives”(691). She saw first handedly that men even wrote books about how ‘bad’ women are. The wife saw that men often spoke this way about women, so that could have brought the wife to the conclusion that men are the problem and the reason for all the women stereotypes.
The Wife of Bath showed many feminist views through the character of the wife. The wife’s character comes alive with her big personality and a lot of that has to do with some of the feminist views that she portrays throughout the poem. She shows that women don’t have to stick to the rules of society made for them by just being who she is, and she makes it known that she will not be like the average everyday women of that time. While reading the wife of bath we can see that the wife stands up for feminist views with no fear or shame of doing so no matter what the men and women of the town may say about
The idea of supremacy and dignity are both present in The Wife of Bath’s Tale making it the central concept throughout the entirety of her story. It is assumed that her primary marriage was organized by her parents, even though The Wife of Bath does not mention them in her prologue, “experience, though no authority/ were in this world, is right enough for me/to speak of the woe that is in marriage; /for, my lords, since I was twelve years of age.” (Chaucer 285). In that time period, it is considered that the men, such as a father, husband or even a brother are supposed to protect the women in the family. Even though The Wife of Bath does not believe in being ruled by a man, she does however like to be married to one. One will notice that when a husband passed away or left, The Wife will move to her next husband. A marriage where the wife conquers over the husband is a perfect, blissful one according to The Wife of Bath. She discovers that it’s not too...
The tale is that of power and who has or should have the control in a relationship is it political, economical, governmental or sexual. The Wife of Bath clearly believes that she, and all women, should have the control in relationships and especially over husbands.
Of the thirty one lines devoted to the portrait of the Wife of Bath only those four are committed to that portion of her character. By today’s standards that is an infinitesimal amount to be dedicated to the salacious parts of a character portrait. The mere fact that this woman had been married five times and that there was a possibility of a scandal in her youth would be enough to wipe out any discussion of her piousness, her travels and most especially her good work. In todays world it would be more likely that her possible promiscuity would be used specifically to undermine any skill she might have to promote herself.
example of the complicated nature of Chaucer’s belief system. On the one hand, we have many strong female characters that despite still being extremely dependant on the men in their lives, know what they want out of life. From a contrasting point of view, readers see a group of men, including Chaucer as the writer himself, making fun of the very nature of women as a whole. Is this really how Chaucer felt towards women, or is the prologue of The Wife of Bath’s Tale simply a parody of the opinions of his time?
“The Wife of Bath’s Tale” in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is a story about a widow who took a pilgrimage to the town of Canterbury with an array of dynamic characters whose diverse backgrounds allowed them to share their stories with one another to make the long journey more interesting. The widow named Alisoun in the “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” told the tale of her experiences with her five past husbands and a story about a knight and a witch. She truly believed that for a woman to have a happy life she would need to gain dominion over a man; however one could assume this was programmed into her by her influential mother and her own religious doctrines. Accordingly, Alisoun argued that the woman must control everything in order to have a happy marriage; however, her life experience and the story she shared should tell her otherwise.
The Wife of Bath is a complex character-she is different from the way she represents herself. Maybe not even what she herself thinks she is. On the surface, it seems as though she is a feminist, defending the rights and power of women over men. She also describes how she dominates her husband, playing on a fear that was common to men. From a point of view of a man during that time period, she seemed to illustrate all of the wrongs that men found in women. Such as a weak parody of what men, then saw as feminists. The Wife of Bath constantly emphasizes the negative implications of women throughout the ages. She describes women as greedy, controlling, and dishonest.
The Wife of Bath complex personality and worldly lifestyle is what makes this story a
The Wife of Bath’s insecurity and cynicism are just two of the ways in which she fulfils negative stereotypes of women. She tries to separate herself from other women of her time by taking control of her life by means of sex, but if she were truly progressive, she would have found a way to elevate herself without using her body. Alisoun is exactly what men fear and dislike about women; she is promiscuously sneaky, and she takes advantage of men. This is why while trying to present herself as strong and independent, her actions ultimately confirm misogynistic stereotypes of women; in the end, she is even more digressive to the cause feminism than a normal woman would be.
Carter, Susan. "Coupling the Beastly Bride and the Hunter Hunted: What Lies Behind The Wife of Bath's Tale." Chaucer Review, Vol. 37 No. 4 (2003), 329-345.
When reading the wife of Baths prologue and then her tale one can not help but to see the parallels present. The major parallel that exists is the subject of sovereignty. Who has it, which wants it, which deserves it and what will you do to get it? First we see that the Wife claims to have sovereignty over each of her husbands even though some were harder to gain dominance over than others. Then there is the tale where we find the answer to the question, “What do women want?”, sovereignty over their husbands. Finally we see the Wife’s idealized version of marriage in her tale. The hag gains control over the knight by forcing him to marry her, then giving him control to decide her loyalty, he cant chose so he gives up all control to her just like that and it’s over, the end, they live happily ever after.
While Chaucer believes that people find a way of establishing their identity through public experiences and private experiences, you notice that The Wife of Bath’s private experiences never end up being private. This is because throughout the story she is constantly defying all social norms that were established in the 1400s. The Wife of Bath believes in the power one has over their body and over their emotions and constantly shows that in how she portrays marriage and sex. The Wife uses her power as a tool to control her husbands and when the marriage fails she simply moves on, claiming that the marriage no longer benefited her in any means possible. Now The Wife, in her attempt to use her intellectual power, often has errors in some of her logic, which results in her not fully having intellectual power. The constant need for power and authority over men, both sexually and intellectually, seem to be what drives this character to act the way she
The character of the Wife of Bath in Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Prologue is a strong woman who knows what she wants from life. She is ahead of her time, seeing that women who portrayed themselves the way she does were not necessarily looked positively upon. In this sense, I believe that the Wife of Bath is a feminist. When I use the word feminist I do not mean bra-burning, men hating feminist. I mean a woman who is in touch with herself. She is her own genre when it comes to feminism. She is comfortable with her sexuality and what she wants from life. Through Chaucer, she is viewed as a promiscuous; however, she is actually in control of her sexual adventures.
In "The Wife Of Bath’s Tale", women most desire sovereignty over men in relationships. In other words, the power to have dominance over men is the one thing women most desire. I agree with the ideas that in relationship women wish to be dominant over the opposite sex. The only way such power is earned or give is when the man is in a situation where the woman must bail him out of trouble.
The Wife of Bath represents the "liberal" extreme in regards to female stereotypes of the Middle Ages. Unlike most women being anonymous during the Middle Ages, she has a mind of her own and voices herself. Furthermore, she thinks extremely highly of herself and enjoys showing off her Sunday clothes whenever the opportunity arises. She intimidates men and women alike due to the power she possesses. Because of her obnoxious attitude Chaucer makes her toothless, fat and large. Doubtlessly, she is very ugly, almost to the point of "not-presentable. This to me shows how Chaucer depicts what men don't want. The Prioress, on the other hand, serves as a foil to the Wife of Bath. Chaucer describes her as "tender-hearted" who cannot bear the sight of pain or physical suffering. She will cry at the thought of a dog dying. It could represent that she has a frail soul with low tolerance for pain and suffering. The latter description carries over into the modern stereotypes about women as skittish and afraid members of society who need to be cared for.
The prologue of this tale showed that the Wife of Bath was not seen as an upstanding woman, nor did she desire to be seen as one. She portrayed feminism, almost as soon as she began speaking in the prologue, she explained that she had gone through five husbands, and she was on the look out for a sixth. She also admitted that she married for money: "I’ll tell the truth. Those husbands I had, three of them were good and two of them bad. The three I call “good” were rich and old. They could indeed with difficulty hold the articles that bound them all to me” (Bath 263). She even went to the point of saying that she didn’t value her husbands’ love. Then again, why should she? She received what she wanted which was money, control, and anything that she desired, they provided. The Wife of Bath thought that all women needed to be the controlling factors in marriage. That is how she believed she would gain her husbands’ money. She claimed that if women can’t marry for money, they must marry for sex, for those are the only two things that really matter. Women must have control of their husbands, according to the Wife, and she is proud of the fact that she governed her husbands. If she had to put them in their place, she would make her husbands feel guilty, even if they had nothing to feel guilty about. The Wife exaggerated with her accusations, showin...