Comparing 'Wife Of Bath And' The Pardoner's Tale

To eat or not to eat. In this battle of concocted tales, this is where it all boils down to. Both the Pardoner and the Wife of Bath have surely produced fine stories, each with their own charm; however, it will not be a battle without a clear winner—only one can enjoy a free meal. Although the “Wife of Bath’s Tale” tapped into a strong topic—gender equality—it only stated that women want to be equal to men as well, but never delved in deeper. The story even disregards the problem at hand: a knight who raped a girl and got away scot-free, even finding himself a beautiful and loyal wife. If the story went differently, the “Wife of Bath’s Tale” has all the components of a great story. Meanwhile, the “Pardoner’s Tale”, although short, successfully showed the corruptness that humans have, as well as the consequences if ever one finds themselves stuck in greed’s vice grip. Therefore, the Pardoner’s tale is better than the “Wife of Bath’s Tale” because it delves into the darkness of humanity, the consequences when one has dug themselves too deep and shows how, despite people knowing the result of their misconduct, will still choose to sink further into darkness.

She believes that women should have absolute power over their marriage. Sovereignty is one of her significant values. Throughout the tale it is apparent that the storyteller still has those same beliefs. During the knight’s quest to acquire the answer, he finds an old lady. This older woman holds the answer he had been searching for. She will tell him the solution if, he promises her one thing. He is to do as she says, if she is ever to need anything. After presenting the answer that the old lady gave him, his life was spared. As a result the old lady asks the knight to marry her. Disgust filled the knight however, he had no choice. In this case the older woman had the power over the knight. The knight had to abide by her request. His negative attitude towards the old lady does not go unnoticed. A preposition if then offered to the knight. The old lady can stay old and loyal or become beautiful and treacherous. Power is rooted in the woman and not the man. The knight has the choice but no sense of ability to change her. The Wife of Bath’s made it clear that she believed women should be in command. It is decided that the old lady will turn beautiful and remain

In the wife of bath's tale the old lady wants to marry the knight. The old lady told him she would tell him what a girl wants or what she needs in life, but in order to tell him what he wanted to hear. He had to marry her. She gave him a choice of a girl, or a beautiful girl, And he chose her.

In this tale, the reader is introduced to a belligerent knight in King Arthur’s court who defiles a woman of royalty. This reprehensible act by the knight entirely differs from the actions of a virtuous and respectable knight, consequently suggesting that ethics are not inherited like affluence or one’s last name. Instead of being punished by death, the knight is sent out by the queen on a quest to find what women really want and love, with the agreement that he has one year and a day to return and only the right answer will spare his life. This is where the expression and meaning of love begins to show divides between separate communities. Along the knight’s quest for the answer he comes

He remembered what the old lady said what women desired the most. “You have two choices; which one will you try? To have me old and ugly till I die, But still displease you all her life, Or would you rather I were young and pretty And chance your arm what happens in a city Where friends will visit you because of me, Yes, and in other places too, maybe.” He had to choose what type of wife he wanted to have. “My lady and my love, my dearest wife, I leave the matter to your wise decision.” The Knight uses his knowledge to his ability. He remembered what the old lady said what women desired the most. He gave her the chance to choose what she wanted. “Lo, she was young and lovely, rich in charms.” Because he gave her the chance to choose, she turned into everything he ever wanted.

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.

Geoffrey Chaucer has written many works of literature, most notably The Canterbury Tales in which he describes many unique characters in the General Prologue and then goes into greater detail with individual prologues and tales. Each tale has some subliminal message about the values which that character stands for. In the end Chaucer intends for us to mock these characters based on the evidence brought forth by their respective tales. Two tales that have very powerful messages are The Wife of Bath Tale and The Pardoner’s Tale.

Then it says “ And of that maiden, spite of all she said, by very force he took her maidenhead” (Chaucer 33-34). This means that the knight went and raped this young maiden. After the Knight rapes this poor young maiden, he is sentenced to death by the King. Upon his death, the Queen says not to kill him. She gave him 12 months and a day to find the answer to her one question.

      In "The Wife of Bath's Tale" A knight is forced to marry a wretched old

In The Canterbury Tales, the poet-pilgrim stories written by Geoffrey Chaucer, tells a touching commentary of religious and political tales. We believe that Chaucer is the narrator of every character’s tale while traveling on the journey to the shrine of Saint Thomas a Becket. The characters on this journey were of various lifestyles. Their reasons for their pilgrimage and their expectations vary as each tale is told. Two characters that can relate and then be the opposite of each other were the Parson and the Pardoner.

“So much petitioning of the king for her” (Line 36, Chaucer). A woman had to beg to press charges after being raped. In contrast to the petitioning, the queen was granted permission to execute the knight’s sentence, and possibly the knight, in lines 42 to 43 (Chaucer). Instead of beheading him, the queen offers the knight an alternative. Over the course of a year, the knight had to discover what women want to save his life (Lines 55-58, Chaucer). While searching he asked locals what they believed women most desired to which they responded: money, fancy clothes, pleasure, good sex, honor, to be widowed and remarried (Lines 72-74, Chaucer). The author believes it is impossible to find what women want, leading the audience the knight will fail. This conclusion is possibly derived from the belief women are unpredictable and hard to please. The replies of the local shows the opinion they had as women as lustful, greedy, vain

In her tale a handsome young knight is charged with rape and is sentenced to death by the king. The queen gives him a year and a day to spare his life if he can answer the question "what is the thing that women most desire?" (Chaucer, l. 81) On the last day he meets an elderly woman who gives him the answer and he promises her that when all of it is over he will give her whatever she desires if it is in his power. The knight goes before the queen and presents the answer that was told to him by the elderly woman and the answer is correct. When he asked the woman what she wanted she replied "to be your wife." The knight refused to marry the old woman, he pleaded her to ask for anything else but that. The old woman said that she would only settle for marriage and so they got married. On their wedding the knight expressed his feeling and how he thought that he was to good for her because she was too old, ugly,and poor. The woman then told him that although she was old, ugly, and poor she would be a faithful wife. She then proposed to him a choice would he want her to be old, ugly, poor, and faithful or young and beautiful and risk that when his friends came over to visit they would visit for the sole purpose of seeing her. The knight then told her that she could choose and the woman told him " does this mean i will be in control of this marriage?" The knight told her "yes, yes, yes." She then became young beautiful and

In The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale, Chaucer satirizes many concepts, among them are love, romance, marriage and women. In the prologue, we learn about The Wife of Bath’s ideals when it comes to relationships. The Wife of Bath’s idea of romance is having all the power in the relationship having her way with her husbands. Having been married five times she only considers three of her husbands “good”. This is based on the fact that they were submissive to her authority. In short, she uses men to get what she wants from them.

In Andreas Capellanus’s The Art of Courtly Love, it states that “Love makes an ugly and rude person shine with all beauty, knows how to endow with nobility even one of humble birth, can even lend humility to the proud.” This means that true love can transform the flaws in different people. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” from the “The Canterbury Tales”, this idea is reflected by the love between a knight and an old crone. The knight is saddened by the fact that he is forced to marry such an ugly, poor, low class woman but once he shows her true love she transforms to a beautiful young woman that is faithful and loyal, and he no longer sees her as poor and low

It is no secret that women throughout history have been seen as the less of two halves. In other words, they were always undervalued and held no real political/social standard within society. In fact their only job in society was to be obedient/submissive to their male counterparts. However, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale, a poem written by Geoffrey Chaucer, redefine those ideals set upon women. The poem is broken up into two parts one is the prologue which includes a woman who talks about the rules set by the church and society on women. As well as how society looks upon women who live her life style. She counters these teaching by her knowledge of the bible by introducing biblical men who had more than one wife. It is later revealed that her sole purpose for doing this was not only to gain women sovereignty. But, to create an equal plane for both the husband and wife in order to formulate a happy marriage and to prove that a women can decide to be submissive or not. After the prologue comes the women tale, which she talks about each of her five husband and how she uses her feminine charm to control them. As well as a male knight who suddenly finds himself in a very dire situation and is in need of help. The same women, now old, helps the knight in exchange for his hand in marriage. Both the prologue and the tale fixate on the idea of women sovereignty; self government and it purpose to achieving a happy and successful relationship between both