Geoffrey Chaucer 's The Wife Of Baths

The Bible includes over sixty-nine references to God smiting down a man or performing genocide or inducing a war or famine in the Bible; even one count of a blasphemer being stoned to death. If The Cantebury Tales had been based on real events instead of just being the satirical work of Geoffrey Chaucer, at least one more count of death would have be added because the Wife of Bath commits the crime of blasphemy on multiple occasions. She turns the sacred words of God into a defense of her indecency. She uses his words to justify her twisted beliefs and actions. She speaks of lust and greed and power. But the most tragic part of all is what she is saying is necessary. She may not be representing women in the fairest light, but that is not

Chaucer used the Wife’s attitude towards marriage and power to show how women do not have to feel oppressed, but can attain much power by not giving into their husbands. This lesson is very relevant even in today’s world.

Gender roles are given, rather than created. Throughout history, women have lived in a male dominated society. “Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot.” As Charlotte Brontë and many other authors have found, it is seemingly unfair that these roles are the way they are. Geoffrey Chaucer also explores this reality with his creation of the Wife of Bath’s Tale. Although her thoughts may have been a bit different from Brontë’s, the character portrayed in this tale explores the duality of both challenging and upholding the patriarchy simultaneously.

“The Canterbury Tales” introduces the Wife of Bath on its General Prologue, describing her as well-dressed: fine, scarlet stockings, nice shoes, and a hat that could easily weigh ten pounds. Her face was red and fair; she also had “the lover's gap teeth.” (457) She has traveled to many places and it is implied she is currently a widow. The Wife had big hips and was fun to be around (clearly). Her appearance and attributes are associated with what typical lustful women look like. The portrayal of The Wife of Bath deems “The Canterbury Tales” as anti-feminist since the author, Geoffrey Chaucer, intends this character to be comical relief or laughed at by his readers, intentionally embodying everything wrong in a woman in this character. Furthermore,

The Wife of Bath, emphasizing “The Prologue of the Wife of Bath’s Tale” and the “The Prologue” in Geoffrey Chaucer 's Canterbury Tales, is an example of the Middle English concept that male authors reflect misogynistic ideals of society onto female characters.With the Wife of Bath, she is a fictional character, as told by Chaucer, going on a Pilgrimage, with constant ridicule for her sexuality and multiple marriages. Chaucer portrays her as a previously battered wife who uses her sexual promiscuity as a way of control. He uses his progressive views to give the Wife of Bath power, but also reflects societal views from the period through responses and actions taken during her life. Although the abilities of women progressed in the Middle

During the Middle Ages men were on top of the world in every aspect of life. They were kings, rulers, knights, and heroes and every woman would gladly forfeit her will for whatever they wanted, at least this was the socially accepted norm. Quite often, however, this was not the case as seen in the “Wife of Bath’s Prologue” written by Geoffrey Chaucer. The Wife of Bath was an unconventional woman who acted like the men of the age in multiple ways. The male pilgrims in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales were uncomfortable with her behavior because she was manlier than they were.

Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is a compilation of twenty seven characters’ stories that convey differentiated perspectives of life, love, humor, and religion. The story begins with the characters, in the late fourteenth century, in a tavern in Southwark, near London, preparing for their pilgrimage or journey to Canterbury to the shrine of the martyr Saint Thomas Becket. The pilgrims decide to have a story telling competition, telling two stories on their way to Canterbury and two on the way back. As the pilgrim’s tales begin to unfold, various types of stories are presented. One of the main topics of the tales that are shared is love. There are distinct types of love that are expressed in the Canterbury Tales, but one of the represented accounts is in the Wife of Bath’s prologue and tale.

The middle class are a class of people, who in modern day society, get to experience most of what luxuries life has to offer: the ‘American Dream’ as some put it. Among them are those who have enough money to indulge themselves a bit in travel or expensive jewelry and can afford to pursue hobbies such as art and music, but still have to worry about taxes, home expenses, and other such bills that take up most of their income. The middle class of modern society dates back to the Renaissance era where science, trade, and the arts skyrocketed one of the first enlightenment periods of human history giving way to much more healthy and joyful lives for the men and women who were once considered peasants to the royal families of the time. A relatively colourful and romantic piece of literature from the 15th century gives the modern readers a glimpse of the birth of the middle class is The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales is a collection of 24 stories give the readers a look into each of the classes of society of the Renaissance; from knights to peasants, and most especially, middle class men and women. One story in particular, titled “The Wife of Bath” tells a rather colourful tale of a middle class woman whose character illustrates this new, rising class of people. Through her tale Chaucer gives a glimpse of the rise of the middle class during the Renaissance which bears some striking resemblance to the middle class of modern times.

Geoffrey Chaucer, the Father of English Literature, was the first to write in English for folks to read. One of his best known works of art would be The Canterbury Tales, which was written between 1380 and 1400 in England, but was never completed due to his death. It was composed in Middle English and portrays a great example of frame narrative. The Canterbury Tales begins with a group of pilgrims traveling from England to Canterbury. While they are navigating, they gather around taking turns to tell their own tales or for some, none at all.

     The Wife of Bath, or Alison, is a worldly woman. Not only has she traveled the world, she has experienced the world, in the sexual manner. Alison herself states this at the beginning of her tale, “Were there no books at all on the subject, my own experience gives me a perfect right to talk of the sorrows of marriage . . . I’ve married five husbands . . . .”(Chaucer 174). The point of Alison’s long-winded prologue is to crush the idea that men have a hierarchy of dominance over women. Chaucer makes this point, and also the point, through Alison’s tale, that if women are given what they want, then they will be obedient and faithful to their men.

     In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Chaucer starts his prologue with the description of twenty-nine people who are going on a pilgrimage. Each person has a different personality that we can recognize from the way people behave today. He purposely makes The Wife of Bath stand out more compared to the other characters. “In the “General Prologue,’ the wife of bath is intentionally described in an explicit way to provoke a shocking response” (Blackman 23). The way she dresses and her physical features are references to her past. By referring to her attitude on men and her physical appearance, Chaucer questions the Wife of Bath’s behavior reguarding strick Christian rules. The Wife of

In the Wife of Bath, Chaucer has rolled the ultimate outrageous medieval stereotype of a female character all into one woman. Before she begins her elaborate tale, the Wife of Bath begins with an introduction of herself. Explaining that she always follows the rules of having experience rather than authority. Starting at the age of twelve to the present she has already had five husbands. Marring them all, she defiantly has the experience she tells us during her prologues story also revealing that many people criticize her for this. But she will honestly say that she never loved but only two of these men for love instead of wealth. Like in the song it was all about her gain and power over them using her female wiles.

Having read Chaucer’s work: “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”, and the prologue, there have been many critical works that suggests opinions and thoughts about how to interpret both the tale and prologue. There have also been questions asked─one being, “so, did we actually figure out what women really want”, and the answer to that varies from person to person. One may say, I thought it was sovereignty, and another might say, no it is not because of how contradicting the tale and prologue can be. Now, to add my two cents to the rest that already exists, I would like to add that in the tale, Chaucer seems to be criticising social norms of men and women. He cleverly does that in a way you might not necessarily capture what is going on, unless you think deeply about what is actually happening. Chaucer is questioning the social ills of his society by low key criticising men and women, by shaping and using the Wife’s character into the narrator of his own views. However, he also makes suggestions on how he think things should be, which lead to complexities.

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s literary works, The General Prologue and The Wife of Bath’s Tale, Chaucer questions misogynistic ideas of the time. Within the General Prologue, Chaucer uses each tale to convey how some people of the time did not act as they should, most of them were corrupt and question the ideas of the church. The Wife of Bath’s Tale is mostly about a Knight who rapes a young woman, and learns his lesson by listening to the women around him. One of his characters, the Wife of Bath, is portrayed to be confident, sexual and independent, which is the opposite of what women were expected to be. They were expected to be timid, dependent solely on men and were unable to voice their own opinions. Within his literary works, Chaucer portrays women to be powerful and manipulative, but all for the common good.

In “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”, the basis of the story directly reflects the storyteller’s personality in the way through the experiences that she has had with men and how women were treated during Geoffrey Chaucer’s time; all of these reflections and ideologies directly reflect the idea of human nature.