Analysis Of The Poem ' The Wife Of Bath ' Essay

The ideals of marriage have changed drastically throughout history, but then it all comes around as history repeats itself. In medieval times there were several texts about the contradictory ideas of reality and ideal life of women and marriage. Chaucer explicitly refutes the misogynistic ideals when the Wife of Bath argues her point using scripture, behaviors of women from his other tales in similarity to the Wife of Bath and detailed events throughout the prologue of the Wife’s roles in her marriages.

While on the way to venerate Saint Thomas Becket’s remains, the entertainment of Chaucer’s Canterbury pilgrims falls upon the requiting of stories between the different estates. However, this requiting quickly turns malicious, the Host’s simple proposition evolving into an aggressive show of social dominance that includes the boasting of both literal and metaphorical rape. The normalization (or, borderline reverence) of aggressive manliness contributes to the creation of both rape culture and compulsory heterosexuality. Consequently, when a man does not dominate a woman—or, does not use his masculinity to humiliate another man—he is seen as weak or effeminate, subsequently placing his sexuality under scrutiny. Such is the motive behind John and Aleyn’s rape of the miller’s wife and daughter—to make Symkin seem weak, and to gain a reputation of superior masculinity. Thus,

The Wife of Bath is one of the many pilgrims introduced in the General Prologue of Canterbury Tales. She is a talented weaver, and it is evident she is wealthy due to the many trips she has taken to Jerusalem and other lavish locations. She knows a great deal about men and love, mainly because she has been married five times in her life.

Ambiguity acts as a catalyst that evokes a certain feeling arousing an immense interest in something that is not definitive. This purposely sparks the audience to dive into the depths on the text to crystallize the uncertainties, and as a result, contemplate the meaning of the uncertainty as well. Throughout the story, Chaucer’s design constantly appears to shift depending on the particular interpretation of the reading; thus, incites uncertainty for the reader as they attempt to firmly pin down the author’s true intention. One of the permeating uncertainties revolves around his character, the Wife of Bath. Raising the question whether Chaucer was applauding or criticizing her, and the purpose of each option. By looking at multiple literary techniques used in the final passage before her tale, we can see that the ending prologue passage acts as a mirror to the final passage of the Wife of Bath’s Tale to illustrate the connections between the Wife of Bath and the old woman from her tale. Chaucer purposely leaves the audience contemplating the meaning of the colloquial fairy tale with regards to the likelihood of the reality of the Wife of Bath character actually existing to act as a warning to the males of the time period.

Female stereotypes dictate that women should be attractive, seductive, and dull-witted. The Wife of Bath embodies most of these stereotypes. Within the prologue, Chaucer tells how the Wife of Bath used her husbands for sex and money. In addition to that, The Wife of Bath is also skilled at manipulating men. Also, the Wife of Bath has a gap between her teeth, which back in the Middle Ages exemplified beauty and sexiness. Having had five husbands seems like a lot, but the Wife of Bath actually desires more. People question her intentions and morals because the Bible says that you can only have one. But after having thought about it, she replies, “Take wise King Solomon of long ago; We hear he had a thousand wives or so” (259). In regards to society’s norms, she has no power or status other than that of a wife. To her society, she is seen as a sex symbol whose had multiple husbands. She is so much more than just a symbol of sex. Her intellect goes completely unnoticed. It seemed easy for her to interpret the story of King Solomon to fit her own personal life. This show that she has a deep understanding of the Bible and that she is good at manipulating things to fit her ideals. During these times, society saw women as naive, not intellectual. By making the Wife of Bath’s character insightful, Chaucer exposes that stereotype. Although she fits into the common stereotypes, she challenges the conventional one that says women should possess no intelligence.

“Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue and a silver sixpence in her shoe” is an old English rhyme that its exact origins are not fully known but was said a good bit in the Victorian era. In 1894 a newspaper in Pennsylvania the Warren Ledger, had this poem in it and was said to be a Puritan marriage tradition but many other areas started using it as their own tradition. By going also with the poem the bride has to collect five objects from her things, family and friends. The five objects are for good luck and a lot of the time they are family ones that have been handed down from one generation to another. The bride will have to wear all the items the day of the in order to have good luck. (Meaning of Something Old, 015)

Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess has been widely debated as to when it was written as this influences the interpretation of which historical figures were fashioned after characters in the poem. The poem was written as a memorial for the death of Duchess Blanche of Lancaster, whose husband John of Gaunt was a patron of Chaucer’s. Knowing the date that Chaucer wrote this poem affects the way in which readers and audience at the time interpreted the poem. The initial response is to read the Black Knight figure as John of Gaunt, because the character is lamenting the loss of his love that is named Lady White in the poem. The French translation of White is Blanche, which makes it evident that the poem is a type of tribute for her death. Therefore the poem can be interpreted as the love between John of Gaunt and Duchess Blanche, as well as his grief for her now that she has passed. The narrator is interpreted to be Chaucer, as his status in the poem appears to be lower than the Black Knight, and the narrator himself is dealing with a grief of his own though it does not explicitly say whom he mourns. Chaucer has carefully woven historical context through The Book of the Duchess by subtly inferring real medieval figures with characters in the poem, as well as the many classical and medieval figures from prominent Greek and Roman Myths, as well as Greek philosophers and academics. Chaucer uses the death of Duchess Blanche as a reason to write The Book of the Duchess as a means to appeal

When I read The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter, I mentally divided into three different subsets of the poem. It goes through the different stages of the speakers life, beginning with the young girl before she fell in love with the merchant, then it transitions to when the couple was in love and together, and end with the couple being in love but not together. Throughout the poem, the speaker was able to pull at different emotions and change the way the reader depicts the young girl.

The following term paper will focus on the adulterous content found in courtly love poetry. There are various genres featuring the theme of adultery in middle English literature, such as the Fabliaux1 which was aimed at a broader audience, but the interest of this paper lies in the courtly love stories of the upper class. The reason for this choice is that aristocracy, in comparison to the other classes, was bound to follow social rules, especially that one of marriage, more strictly than others, since political peace and stability relied on their family relations. Therefore courtly love stories would make a change in attitude more visible.

The Wife of Bath displays sexual immorality. Boasting God has granted her the will to love multiple men in her lifetime. Alisoun shows traits of an unmoral woman in the medieval time period. She wishes “to be refreshed half so often” (50). Not only does she declare that God permits her to live her life like this, but also wishes that he would provide more. WOB believes that happiness originates from the satisfaction of men and gives no grief on the pain she delivered to them. “Why should I bother to please them, unless it were for my profit and pleasure?” (216). Pleasing herself with pleasure gives her contentment in life. She loves to have men want and need her as a necessity of their lives.

On my paper, I decided to do the wife of Bath's Prologue to the song lyrics "I Do" by Colbie Caillat. The first stanza says:

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the poems “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue” and “The Wife of bath’s Tale”, the main character Alisoun, explains she has come to such a point in her life where she has to defend her actions. She has had five marriages and has been harshly judged for it. She questions the constructs and the rules placed before her and challenges men by focusing on women’s rights. Her motivation is solely to live as well as she possibly can, but she argues for all females who have gone through the same unequal treatment. Through the characters of the Wife of Bath, Chaucer shows how society unequally treats women by allowing men to abide to a separate set of rules not shared by women. The different genders go through double standards which give a greater leniency for men when judged for the same crime as a female.

In the Wife of Bath (written in such a way that authorship is through her), by Geoffrey Chaucer, he offers context through the prologue and her tale to reveal the issues of marriage through cultural problems and the legal rights of a woman in the middle ages. This can be seen through the exemplified through her husbands, the use of biblical passages and the interruptions from male figures within the play.

The story the Wife of Bath’s Prologue is about this wife who has her own beliefs on a particular subject. According to the wife she has a lot of experience when it comes to marriage, the reason is she has been married five times. “And God be that I have married five” (l 44). She has seen ways of the world through love and sex. The wife says “Experience, though no authority Were in this world, would be enough for me To speak of woe that married affords; For since I was twelve years of age” (l 1-4). She explains how she is qualified to talk about marriage. Through her experiences with her husbands, she has learned how to provide for herself in the era where women had little independence or power.

The idea of love in marriage is a reoccurring theme within British literature, and Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is no exception. The Canterbury Tales consists of a multitude of short stories which offers a peek into what the social culture of England in the Middle Ages may have been like. Two stories, in particular, are “The Millers Tale” and “The Knights Tale,” which are two contrasting stories that juxtaposes each other’s stance on love in marriage.