Feminism In Chaucer's The Wife Of Bath

The Wife of Bath takes on the role of appearing as a stubborn, valiant woman of her time. As a character of The Canterbury Tales, she attracts quite a bit of attention. She lives as a seamstress but remains extremely familiar with the role of a wife. The Wife of Bath has engaged herself in five marriages, making her proficient in the profession of love. She uses her own experiences with her husbands to give others advice. Throughout the tale, the Wife of Bath shows sexual immorality, arrogance, and manipulative characteristics making her an impostores woman.

“The Wife of Bath’s Tale” is a frame story in the story “Canterbury Tales,” written by Geoffrey Chaucer and it brings a lot of controversy. In the story, the Knight rapes a young girl and as punishment, is forced to find the answer to what women truly want. The Knight stumbles onto an Old Woman who claims to have the answer to his punishment. The woman agrees to give him her answer so long as he does whatever she wants. As part of the deal, the Knight marries the old woman despite his disgust for her appearance. At the end of the story the Knight accepts the woman for who she is and gives her the choice to be herself, resulting in equality between them. Many readers are quick to find the anti-feminist views, however, the story is much more feminist than they give it credit for. The story is feminist because it gives women the choice to be viewed as more than just objects.

An inference that can be made about the Wife of Bath is that she is confident in herself and even her past. The Wife of Bath seems very knowledgeable in love and confident in her beliefs. In “The Tale of the Wife of Bath” she says “If anyone should rub us on a gall, That will not kick because he tells the truth.” This sentence shows how the Wife of Bath is unapologetic when it comes to love and who she is. At the end of her story, she takes the time to ask God to send women a particular type of husband. She says “and Jesus to use send meek husbands, and young ones, and fresh in bed, And good luck to outlive them that we wed.” This quote shows the Wife of Bath is confident in her knowledge of men and love because she believes every woman wants

The Wife of Bath is not a one-dimensional character and cannot be placed into one stereotype entirely. While women are often shown as virgins in the medieval time, the Wife of Bath is very open about her sexual past and her experiences in love. Using the Bible to support her claims, the Wife of Bath defends her sexual experiences and multiple marriages by saying, “But wel I woot, expres, withouten lie, / God bad us for to wexe and multiplye: / That gentil text can I wel understonde” (Greenblatt 231). While women are portrayed as being helpless without men in their lives in many medieval works, the Wife of Bath shows great independence in the way she speaks and acts. She enforces her ability to take charge and find advantages for herself in marriage. While the stereotype of women call for submission to their husbands, she demonstrates her assertion of control as she governs her husbands to best suit her desires. Unlike the stereotype of older women searching to be unfaithful to their husbands, the Wife of Bath remained faithful to her last two husbands when she was older in age. The Wife of Bath defies stereotypical depictions of women in many of characteristics and actions throughout the Canterbury

Chaucer's Use of the Female Gender to Shape His Text with Reference to Wife of Bath

The wife served as a submissive figure in the marriage, including in bed (Bovey, 2014). However, throughout The Wife of Bath’s prologue, we can see how dominant the Wife of Bath was in her five marriages. The first three husbands particularly were old and rich men, and she divulged how she would tease them sexually at night and wouldn’t have sex with them until they provided gold or other treasures. She made these husbands feel guilty by accusing them of adultery and of being unfaithful until they gave her what she wanted. The verbal manipulation didn’t end at the third husband; she claimed to have consistently tried to make her fourth husband jealous and angry due to his adulterous behaviour, calling herself his purgatory on earth. Moreover, with her fifth husband, she verbally and

With being obsessed about her power in relationships, the characterization of the Wife of Bath goes against the idea of feminism because a feminist desires equal power in comparison to everyone else, and all she wants is to be the most powerful woman. It can also be inferred that Chaucer is an anti-feminist because his writing of the Wife of Bath allows her to reveal how demanding and harsh she is on her husbands in marriage. By allowing her to do so, the Wife of Bath can be seen as a dictator in the relationship, which contradicts the beliefs of a feminist, and therefore supports the idea that Chaucer is an anti-feminist who is writing to tear down the Wife of Bath. Not only do feminists believe in equality, but they also believe that woman should be able to live their life alone and be able to stand up for themselves. This can be shown throughout the Wife of Bath’s rant about husband number four.

A careful analysis of Gregory Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath” led to identifying and deconstructing the theme of gender roles within the poem. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is used in order to help readers translate and make clear of passages that were originally unclear. In the process, the various definitions of words from different time periods made certain ideas within the poem open to other interpretations. Through a better understanding of the words incubus, ragery, deef and bigamye, “The Wife of Bath” reveals the distinction between man and woman. A man who once held supremacy is now seen as inferior by a woman who gains mastery over him. Chaucer does this purposefully as it not only says something about the characters but the culture as well.

It is through religion that she makes a case for having overt sexuality. She uses the bible to back her ways of thinking because of the weight and authority that religion held. In today’s world, feminist fight for the ability to freely express their own sexuality in whatever way that may be, and though the wife of bath is not technically a feminist, her display of taking sexual autonomy is reminiscent of feminist ideals. Even though the wife of bath Is a woman of Chaucer’s time she does not value purity of virginity like her society does, “purity and body and in heart may please some-as for me I make no boast” (Chaucer). Of course, the wife of bath has been married multiple times (which is a problem within itself because having numerous

The Wife of Bath is an extremely intriguing character. A certain type of conduct is to be expected of women in Chaucer’s era. Chaucer flips these presumptions to create Alis, better known as the Wife of Bath. In the General Prologue, the Wife of Bath is described in many ways, none associated with being a woman. Chaucer makes the Wife of Bath a strong and opinionated female character to contrast the antifeminist minds of people in his time period.

From the very start he uses that Narrator of the story to describe her appearance and the briefly talk about her accomplishments. When describing the Wife of Bath, the narrator mentions the color red as an important feature. In literature, the color red signifies promiscuity. The narrator focuses on the color of her stockings stating that “her hose were of the finest scarlet red and gartered tight;...,” (). This subtle judgment alludes to the importance of her sexual habits and her compromised chastity. The narrator then continues on by pointing out the fact that she had been married five times, an atypical habit for women during this time, then again characterizing her as an oversexualized character. At the very end of his introduction to the wife of Bath, the narrator points out that she is adventurous and well traveled, an accomplishment unfamiliar to most women. The narrator just simply states “and she has thrice been to Jerusalem, seen many strange rivers and passed over the; she’d been to Rome and also to Boulogne, St. James of Compostella and cologne, and she was skilled in wandering by the way” (). Even though her accomplishments are unusual for women during that time, they are quickly and blatantly said without any glory rewarded. Also note the use of the word “wandering” opposed to a more empowering word. The setup of Chaucer's introduction to the wife of bath is very precisely set up; if she was a man her accomplishments

Chaucer's "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale" is a medieval legend that paints a portrait of strong women finding love and themselves in the direst of situations. It is presented to the modern day reader as an early tale of feminism showcasing the ways a female character gains power within a repressive, patriarchal society. Underneath the simplistic plot of female empowerment lies an underbelly of anti-feminism. Sometimes this is presented blatantly to the reader, such as the case of Janekin's reading aloud from "The Book of Wikked Wives" (The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale 691). However, there are many other instances of anti-feminism that may not scream so loudly to the reader. This

This was a tough one to read. At no point did I see The Wife of Bath as a strong feminist character. Maybe in her day and time, her behavior as a woman was viewed as somewhat independent and strong. However, after reading this story, it seemed to be somewhat of a joke. Chaucer appears to be making a mockery of women. He takes a real issue that women face and turns it into a comedy. I’m sure that women of her time desired to be treated with respect and as equals. But he magnifies the negative stereotypes associated with women. He portrayed “our spokeswoman” to be ignorant, aloof,manipulative, deceitful, greedy and domineering (if given any authority). At no point did she prove herself to be empowering or show the ability to lead the charge

In Chapter Four of her Chaucer’s Poetics, Dinshaw explores the complex between text and its glossator and connects it to the female and male relations presented by Chaucer. She argues that the Wife of Bath repurposes the “glose” methods of medieval hermeneutics through mimesis in order to promote the change, not dissolvement, of the dissatisfying patriarchy which favors female desire and sexuality. This call for patriarchal reform, argues Dinshaw, is part of Chaucer’s “male fantasy”, a fantasy which allows him to participate in both reform and patriarchal discussion. Ultimately, Chaucer, through the Wife, can reuse the problematic model of sexualized hermeneutics to speak to its flaws. He presents the skewed view of the patriarchy in regards to the feminine first in Troilus and Criseyde, The Legend of Good Women, and Man of Law’s Tale and then with the Wife, calls for a writing of the feminine that is neither feminist or misogynist. Through the use of these tales and that of the Wife, Dinshaw delves into this intriguing thesis and argues for it

The Wife of Bath is a wealthy and elegant woman with extravagant, brand new clothing. She is from Bath, a key English cloth-making town in the Middle Ages, making her a talented seam stress. Before the wife begins her tale, she informs the audience about her life and personal experience on marriage, in a lengthy prologue. The Wife of Bath initiates her prologue by declaring that she has had five husbands, giving her enough experience to make her an expert on marriage. Numerous people have criticized her for having had many husbands, but she does not see anything immoral about it. Most people established negative views on her marriages, based on the interpretation of what Christ meant when he told a Samaritan woman that her fifth husband