Wife Of Bath Stereotypes

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.

In the wife’s prologue she beings by granting herself authority, given the time and circumstance of the background this would be shocking to most of those around her. She does this two ways: first, she gives her experiences of her many marriages, she then alines her experiences with that of a respected man. “Experience, though no authority. Were in this world, would be enough for me To speak of woe that married life affords; For since I was twelve years of age, my lords, Thanks be to God eternally alive, Of husbands at the church door I 've had five (If I have wed that often legally), And all were worthy men in their degree.” This is a clever trick she is using at the very beginning. when she states that her experience is not an authority. This is because she is almost lessening herself before she alines herself with a king in the next statement. She humbles herself, and allows her audience to make her higher. But she insures this higher thought by highlighting her

A woman who helped men cheat to their own wife was her hobby. She was a woman who is having fun ruining the other people’s life. She would never marry a mexican. “ I’ll never marry. Not any man. I’ve known men intimately. I’ve witnessed their infidelities, and I’ve helped them do it” , the Narrator narrated. Marrying a man doesn’t matter to her, it wasn’t important to her. She have seen it through her own eyes, how a man would cheat to his own wife. For her these men taught her that a man can never stay loyal to his wife. Men will cheat for as long as they wanted to. “ I was the one who convinced you to let him be born. Did you tell him, while his mother lay on her back laboring his birth, I lay in his mother’s bed making love to you”, described by the narrator. He whom she sleeps with doesn’t his own child to be born for he cheated to his wife. She convinced him to let his child be born for the baby has done nothing to

Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” is an important part of his most famed work, The Canterbury Tales. One of the most respected highly analyzed of all of the tales, this particular one is important both for its character development and its prevailing themes. It seamlessly integrates ideas on society at that time with strong literary development. This work stands the test of time both because of its literary qualities and because of what it can teach us about the role of women in late Medieval society.

"The Wife of Bath", in the collection of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, illustrates the stereotypical image of a women in medieval times ("The Portrayal of Gender in The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale.") The tale characterizes women as lustful and greedy burdens on men. However, to readers today, "The Wife of Bath" represents a strong minded feminist woman who is confident and open about her sexuality. Narrated by a character called Alisoun, "The Wife of Bath" reveals an insight to a woman’s point of view in medieval times. Alisoun begins her long prologue by declaring that she follows the rule of experience; announcing that she’s a self–proclaimed women. Throughout the her tale Alisoun questions and challenges the idea of power and authority in medieval society. Through Alisoun, Chaucer gives women a voice to express their call for equality and their need for power. By using description and characterization, Chaucer gives readers an insight to a society in which women are starting to express their desire to have power ultimately arguing that in order for men to be happy women need to have sovereignty in medieval times.

In the time period of the 14th century, many woman faced inequality. Women were not viewed to uphold the same quota as men. Most females were viewed as passive to males and were not able to make many demands in their relationships or make any contributions to their own survival or life. In the “Wife of Bath Tale”, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, Chaucer gives an insight into the struggles of a woman. Chaucer gives a voice for women who cannot speak for themselves. He creates a tale for the Wife of Bath that includes and questions the societal views of women. Written in the words of a woman, Chaucer undermines what it means to be a female in the fourteenth century who desires independence and

Chaucer’s Wife of Bath gives the reader a glimpse into the world of medieval women and at the same time is a commentary on Chaucer’s view of deficiencies of his world. In the Knight’s Tale, the reader sees a resistance to the rights of women, typical of the medieval period and in the Wife’s Tale there is a peek at the beginning of the sovereignty of women of their own

Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is considered a work of satire towards medieval society by many literary critics. Chaucer uses the Wife of Bath as a prime way to quip a key fourteenth century practice wherein medieval society is patriarchal from noblemen to peasants. Women are one of the most restrained groups. The Wife of Bath narrates a story mocking male superiority and spouts a pro-women narrative. In this tale, the Wife of Bath shows women not submitting to a man’s world. For this period in time, she is a progressive who implies men are not in control of society which does not fit the mold of women at the time. She infers women are running everything from behind the curtain with men merely being used as puppets.

The prologue of this tale showed that the Wife of Bath was not seen as an upstanding woman, nor did she desire to be seen as one. She portrayed feminism, almost as soon as she began speaking in the prologue, she explained that she had gone through five husbands, and she was on the look out for a sixth. She also admitted that she married for money:

As the Wife explains, she used her sexual power to dominate her husbands. In an essay put out by Portland state University, it says that "In the Middle Ages, many members of the Church began to see sex and lust as a sin created by The Fall." This is further shown in Scripture itself in many places, one of them being 2 Corinthians 12:21:

The discussion of the Wife’s five husbands describes her evolving role as a woman and how she overcame the most ridiculous obstacles to maintain this idea or illusion of marriage. The Wife’s depiction of her marriages was that three were good and two were bad. The initial marriages were to older rich men where she kept up this idea of marriage in order to receive money, but was not faithful by

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

When the Wife of Bath first begins to explain her past, she seems to be nothing more than an misogynistic caricature of every negative viewpoint of women during that time. Not only does she appear to gleefully revel in the debauchery of her lifestyle, but the Wife of Bath actually takes it a step further by insinuating that cries against the unfair treatment of women by men are nothing more than a way for women to manipulate unsuspecting men into giving them what they want. She advises women to “speak and accuse [their husbands] wrongfully” (Chaucer 226) and confirms the common stereotype of conniving women by

The investigation into whether or not Geoffrey Chaucer was ahead of his time in terms of his views on feminism has been up for debate for hundreds of years. The Wife of Bath’s Prologue is just one solitary

In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer assembles a misfit group of individuals representing various social classes and backgrounds, to embark on a Pilgrimage to Canterbury. Though a majority of the characters that partake in the religious endeavor seem “out of place,” the Wife of Bath is arguably the most awkward of the grouping. Her character’s morals do not align with that of the Catholic church, and her social status as a woman of the time warrants her role in the novel to be limited; yet, Chaucer focuses particularly close on her character. This allows for speculation upon what Chaucer was attempting to accomplish by including such a large role for the Wife of Bath. When referring back to the “Wife of Bath’s Prologue” as well as the “Wife of Bath’s Tale,” one realizes that Chaucer is actually casting little to no judgment on the Wife of Bath herself; rather, he is utilizing satire through her character to make fun of society’s skewed feelings toward women.