Marriage In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

One of the more comforting characteristics of human history is its overall lack of originality. People, regardless of location or situation, tend to act exactly as their predecessors did. It is with this nugget of knowledge that the current generation can look to the future with a certain sense of ease, knowing that it will probably be no different from the past they have read about in history books. This occurrence, the repetition of human nature throughout time, is no more evident than in a comparison of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and contemporary society. While Chaucer primarily used his writing to satirize the people of his day, he simultaneously and unwittingly satirized those of the future who share the same unfortunate circumstances. In Chaucer’s “The Miller’s Tale”, he uses infidelity and the relationship between husband and wife to ridicule marriage. In popular

The disparity in the outcomes of the hag's marriage and Alison's marriages in Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale" depends in part on the women's differing expectations of their husbands. The hag's modus agendi depends on a knight's obligation to honour his pledge, whereas Alison's modus operandi depends on her husbands' conduct after marriage, i.e. on her circumstances. Having saved the knight's life, the hag asks the knight to permit her to be his wife. Moreover, she wants to be his love. The knight must marry, since marrying the hag lies within his might. Since the hag's definition of being his wife includes her loving him, he is duty-bound to

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, he introduces a character known as the Wife of Bath. It is her turn to tell the stories, and her tale begins discussing her past marriages in the prologue. Married five times, the Wife of Bath tells us about her own marital issues, and the way she was able to manipulate the gender roles to her own advantage. As interesting of a character as she is, I find Chaucer created the Wife of Bath to deliberately introduce the issues gender roles play in our society. I believe that the role the of the Wife of Bath in the tale was purposely written by Chaucer to twist the traditional gender roles of the time, satirizing how gender plays in society.

He knew nat Catoun for his wit was rude, that bad man sholde wedde his similitude” (Lines 113-120). Absolon on the other hand just wanted sex, and as much Alisoun despised him he would not stop stalking her. The Miller’s tale is cynical, because love is either misguided or lust and humans often are confused between the two. The author wanted to point that humans must know the difference or else the outcome would most likely be devastating thus leading to one’s own fault. While others might say this theme was not about love, but more about sexual desires, it was not the case. Sexual desires was only part of the theme because sex has always been alined with love in every relationship good or bad. Chaucer want readers to get past the sexual imagery and look at the love theme which incorporated in this story. The love theme represented the trouble behind human minds and how lust can be confused as love.

The Canterbury Tales depict many characters that, although fictionally created by Geoffrey Chaucer, may give the reader the opportunity to analyze and interpret their tales as a way of determining their personalities. The Wife of Bath and her prologue accurately supports this statement, as her intentions become expounded due to her questionable actions. The Wife of Bath exhibits in her prologue that she lacks respect and gratitude towards the men she beguiles into marriage and does so by falsely claiming direction from God. She shows not only deceit towards her many husbands, but also does not possess the ability to care about others before herself.

All through Canterbury Tales, women are dealt with as objects in everyday life. In the “Miller’s Tale,” an old man marries a younger, attractive women for her looks. In the “Wife of Bath’s Tale,” a virgin woman has her virginity and innocence taken from her by what is suppose to be a noble and honorable knight and when his punishment is later to marry an older, less attractive women, all respect for his newly wife vanishes. A woman’s level of recognition in Canterbury Tales are through her class in society, whether she is young and beautiful, or old and disgusting, and her degree of experience in life. Women are not desired for their intelligence, wisdom and capabilities which might of kept a relationship deceitful-free. The “Wife of

Often, the most memorable female characters are those who break out of the stereotypical “good wife” mold. When an author uses this technique effectively, the woman often carries the story. In Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, he portrays the Wife of Bath, Alison, as a woman who bucks the tradition of her times with her brashness and desire for control. Chaucer effectively presents a woman's point of view and evokes some sympathy for her.

There are three women in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the prioress, the wife of Bath and the prostitute in the Shipman’s Tale. The prioress and the wife of Bath are the only ones of the three that have a fully developed part of the overall work. They are equal to the male characterizations; the prostitute is only minor player. Women are rarely mentioned in the other pilgrim’s tales. The wife of Bath and the Prioress are examples of strong medieval women. As Chaucer depicts them, they are a departure from the typical sinful daughters of Eve with the exception of the prostitute. The wife Dame Alisoun, and the prioress are both pious, successful females but they are still under the domain of men. Chaucer’s women are still part of the patriarchal world of the late middle ages.

In Geoffrey Chaucer's work, The Canterbury Tales, many travelers gather together to begin a pilgrimage. During their quest, each of the pilgrims proceed to tell a tale to entertain the group. From these stories arise four different tales, in which Chaucer uses to examine the concept of marriage and the problems that arise from this bonding of two people. In the tales of "The Franklin", "The Clerk", "The Wife of Bath", and "The Merchant", marriage is debated and examined from different perspectives. Out of the four tales, The Franklin's Tale presents the most reasonable solution to the marriage debate because the problems are resolved with the least amount of heartache.

Throughout literature, deep relationships can often be discovered between a story and the author who writes it. Relationships can also be found in stories about a husband and wife. In Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales many of the characters make this idea apparent with the stories they tell. In “The Pardoner’s Tale”, a distinct relationship can be made between the character of the Pardoner and his tale of three friends. Also, the Wife in “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” boldly declares her relationship towards her husband.

The Canterbury Tales, begun in 1387 by Geoffrey Chaucer, are written in heroic couplets iambic pentameters, and consist of a series of twenty-four linked tales told by a group of superbly characterized pilgrims ranging from Knight to Plowman. The characters meet at an Inn, in London, before journeying to the shrine of St Thomas a Becket at Canterbury. The Wife of Bath is one of these characters. She bases both her tale and her prologue on marriage and brings humor and intrigue to the tales, as she is lively and very often crudely spoken. Her role as a dominant female contrasts greatly with the others in the tales, like the prim and proper Prioress represents the

Chaucer’s “Wife of Bath Prologue and Tale” focus on the story telling of a woman who has experienced her fair share of marital issues. She is depicted as a promiscuous woman, married five times and had plenty of male suitors, the Wife was not like any other woman during this era. Although her reputation was how most perceived her, she was not a fan of being scrutinized for what she considered as her duty as a woman; to not remain single. This is seen through the depiction of women in society, how marriage ought to be in the eyes of religion, and how men were to view a woman like her. The language that is used throughout Chaucer’s prologue and tale allude to the evolution of women as well as how they struggled to gain any recognition in

In The Canterbury tales, Chaucer uses The Wife of Bath as a representation of what it was like for Women in the Middle Ages to be striped of equality and bow to the otherwise male dominated society. For the representation of women Chaucer uses the Tales of “The Scholar”, “The Second Nun “The Reeve’s”, and “The Franklin” and many others in a very dry, pretentious manner to steer readers into the view of how a women of the Middle Ages should be as a so called “virtuous” wife or woman. The concept of marriage plays a major part in manifesting the idea of the issues of inferiority of women. The perception rendered as women having to be obedient and inferior figure to their husbands or male counter parts. Chaucer

Everyone has a story. Certainly Chaucer believes so as he weaves together tales of twenty nine different people on their common journey to Canterbury. Through their time on the road, these characters explore the diverse lives of those traveling together, narrated by the host of the group. Each character in the ensemble is entitled to a prologue, explaining his or her life and the reasons for the tale, as well as the actual story, meant to have moral implications or simply to entertain. One narrative in particular, that of the Wife of Bath, serves both purposes: to teach and to amuse. She renounces the submissive roles of a woman and reveals the moral to her story while portraying women as sex seeking, powerful creatures, an amusing thought

The wife continues on with details of her five marriages to say that she previously had three unfit husbands and two fit husbands. Focusing less time telling about the unfit, she simply focuses her tale to tell of how she believes one should go about marriage- much like a business transaction. “By accepting the reduction of female sexuality to an instrument of manipulation, control and punishment” the wife gets what she wants through withholding sex. (Aers 148). The wife’s character in The Wife of Bath ultimately argues for Chaucer’s skewed representation of love, sex and marriage as seen in the Canterbury Tales.