Is the Wife of Bath’s prologue implying that men should be more obedient or women should be more independent? The Wife of Bath’s prologue and tale both focus on relationships between men and women. The Wife was not an ordinary woman; she was rather an interesting character. She seemed to be a demanding woman who used what she had to get whatever she wanted. Her prologue describes how determined she was to rule over her husbands.
The Wife believed that women should have more power than men do. She was definitely not afraid to break the rules. She felt as if the rules did not apply to her, and she made it very clear that she was not afraid to do whatever she pleased. In her prologue, she was very open about her relationships with her five husbands. In The Wife of Bath’s discussion of her first three husbands she describes how joyous it was to manipulate them to get whatever she wanted. She boasted about how successful she was at gaining control over her husbands. “And of one thing I can boast, you see: I had the better of them in high degree, By cunning, force, or some manner of thing, Such as continual murmuring and grumbling. And in bed especially they had mischance: There was my chiding and remonstrance” (410-414). The Wife used deceitfulness to
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She was furious, because Jankyn was reading a book aloud about the five wicked wives in history. She ripped a few pages from the book and punched him, causing Jankyn to strike her on the head; the Wife hit him back. Jankyn was one of the difficult husbands to dominate and would often beat on her, but she and Jankyn finally came to an agreement. Jankyn handed over all of his land to her, and she was kind to him. Jankyn was a tough cookie to break, which made her want him more. Her main goal in life was to have power and control. The Wife feels that she can speak about power because of her experiences with her five
Can men and women ever truly understand each other? Readers see that in “the Wife of Bath’s Tale” that a knight was sent on a year quest to find out what women actually want. In “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” that she views that women should be treated equal but they are treated only for their beauty not their intelligence. In “The Men we Carry in Our Minds” it shows how different women and men were treated. men only having manual labor jobs and women taking care of children not much in between. (Chaucer pp.77, Sanders pp.131, Wollstonecraft pp. 114).
The Wife of Bath uses bible verses in “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue.” Further, she employs the verses as an outline of her life to find reason in God to justify her actions. Nevertheless, the purpose of the verses differs within each stanza of the poem. The Wife of Bath is a sexually promiscuous, lustful, and manipulative woman. She marries men one after the other as they get older and die. In order to combat and overthrow the speculation and criticism being thrust upon her by societal norms because of her marriages, the wife turns to specific bible passages to find reason in life and support for her actions (Article Myriad.com). When the wife is having sex quite frequently and with different men she is said to be fruitful and multiplying. According to the wife, this is what she is told to do in the bible passage, which she has misinterpreted. Ironically, The Wife of Bath is using a predominantly male dominated book to back up and support her reasons for women being equal to men (Article Myriad.com). Not only has she referred to the benefits of adultery through the bible, she has also attempted to undermine the power of men in the very same way she has attempted to prove that the genders are equal. From this, it can be interpreted that although the wife claims to be providing evidence for women being equal to men, she is actually saying that women are better than men. She misinterprets the readings of the bible and male written passages on purpose in order to suit her needs.
The Wife of Bath pursued husbands in a way that did not benefit both sides of the marriage. She clearly admits that she does not show shame from having sexual relations with many different men, as she simply desires sex and riches from wealthy men. Medieval civilizations did not consider this behavior appropriate, as it conflicted with ideas of courtly love and God’s word. She states that, “I am dominated by the planet Venus in my senses, and my heart is dominated by the planet Mars” (Chaucer 626). This statement supports that her body and desires only seek pleasure, while her true soul remains conflicted, unable to truly love. At the end of each marriage she appears as the one who reigns victorious and still willing to remarry: “I boast of one thing for myself; in the end I had the better in every way” (430). The Wife does not have respect for her multiple wedded spouses, and would rather remain happy when they leave her than to flood herself with emotion of sadness.
She gained control by using any and every technique she knew, which includes the withholding of “pleasure”, which we see in line 414 above. Instead of her husbands living a long life which her tale suggests in lines 1266 - 1268 by asking that Jesus take the lives of those husbands that are not controlled by there wives, the Wife of Bath gains sovereignty and they still die? Hardly, This parallel brings up the question of what really happened to husbands one through four, and is husband number five sitting at home or has he also found himself six feet under? Is it a coincidence that she came home from her last
Do men and women fully understand each other or do their generalizations prevent them from really understanding what the other is like? In “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” Geoffrey Chaucer conveys that it is hard for people to understand the opposite sex. The tendency of being bias towards a specific gender makes it difficult to reach an understanding. The struggle of trying to understand each other is also seen in “News Coverage of a Woman’s Rights Campaign” and “The Men we Carry in Our Minds.”
The Wife of Bath's greedy need for complete control over men reflects in most of her actions. She seems proud of this, and constantly describes women as cruel creatures that bring great sorrow to men. When talking about her first three husbands, she says that she "governed them" (193), and "chided them cruelly" (193). She makes life for her husbands a living hell, having no respect for their feelings. Just like the women questioned in her story, she cares only for "riches...amusement...rich apparel...," to be "flattered and pampered," and for "pleasure in bed" (225). When talking of her first three marriages, she says: "Since they had given me all their land, why should I take pains to please them, unless it be for my own profit and pleasure" (192). In her story, the moral is that all women want to hold the whip in a relationship, and it is in the man's best interest to let them do so. The Wife of Bath is not a woman to be admired and, worst of all, she insists all
In the Wife of Bath’s Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer, various women, such as the Queen and the old hag, stake their claim to authority over men. Yet, they do so in a very covert manner. The knight has clearly abused his male power. He is a rapist. With the help of women, however, he is rehabilitated and seems to achieve the ultimate happiness. When these women support the feminist viewpoint that women should have mastery over their husbands, they are also echoing the sentiments the Wife of Bath presents in her prologue. Yet, these women abandon mastery the moment they attain it. The old hag relinquishes mastery back to her husband immediately after he grants it to her,
The Wife of Bath contains three issues that were pretty extreme for the women of the time period. The negative connotation linked with the women and sex is the first one, the second is the position of husband and wife in marriages that leave the women submissive and the men in control, and third is the violence done by men to women. The seriousness of these issues were not discussed at all by men and most certainly not by women. The fact that the Wife of Bath brought up such issues and promoted the ideas of women in these situations was profound. The wife is smart in her delivery in both the Prologue and Tale. The Tale restates all of the subjects of marriage, violence, and sex that she first brings up in the Prologue, and
The Wife of Bath had five husbands, and she believes that women should have all the power in the marriage. This is very important to her tale, and the Wife of Bath shows just how smart she was, manipulating her
In The Canterbury Tales, the Wife of Bath gives an in-depth look on her life and understanding on the world as she perceives it. During her Prologue, we learn that what she calls experience stems from her first three marriages, but during her last two there is a shift in power. The Wife of Bath demonstrates her understanding and power throughout her first three marriages both physically and emotionally and the contrast of her lack of control in her last two, thus revealing the true meaning behind what she believes is experience during these marriages. The Wife of Bath’s authority can be viewed as realist when paralleled to the chain of being because of the emotional control she has over her previous husbands and the simple fact that she
Lastly, The Wife of Bath’s Tale is wronged because it goes against the idea of patriarchy. Patriarchy goes all the way back to Aristotle who said that there was a pyramid of life; gods on top, the men, and last women and whatever was left. Women, back then, were to obey their husbands, and if they didn’t their husbands were allowed to beat some sense into them to put them back in line. With that information comes the Wife of Bath who stands up in front of the group and explains how she would trick her husbands and proved that she was just as smart, maybe even smarter. Moving onto her tale which also has to do with a woman tricking a man. In the tale a knight is set on a journey to find out what women want. While on his journey he comes in contact with an old lady who makes a deal with him; if he does what
She complains that the stories in the Bible that denigrate women are written by monks who have no experience with them, and that the stories would be far different if women were to write them. After Jankin struck her, she appeared dead, but when she revived he was so penitent that he ceded all authority in the marriage to her. From that point onward she was kind to him, for he had given her what she truly wanted.
In the stories of The Wife of Bath and Queen Guinevere from the tale of King Arthur, both women of nobility and are strong characters. The Wife of Bath is a woman who likes to be known in the upper class and enjoys and parties. Queen Guinevere “is more passionate and caring,” she takes her royal status for granted. In the Middle Ages, these two women did not fit the idea of how women were to act or think towards their roles as women in that time period.
The prologue and the tale itself reveal some of women’s demands at that time. It is mainly a demand for power. In the case of the Wife of Bath, she demands power over decisions and over her husbands. Evidence of this claim can be found in the following verses: “I’ll have a husband -- I’m not quitting yet -- / And he will be my debtor and my slave, / And in the flesh his troubles will be grave / As long as I continue as his wife; / For I will have the power all my life / Over his body, I and never
In the Wife of Bath’s prologue and tale, it is explicitly stated that the interaction between men and women is purely physical, and that all women want total control in their relationships because women always want what they don’t have. The Wife of Bath is a living example of the ideals put forth in her tale. She is a businesswoman who has enough money to live comfortably, and, at the time of her telling her tale, she is widowed. When peering into her past, we see that she was a child bride who is forced to rely on her wits and her body