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.

Oftentimes in primeval literature, female characters are unfairly judged based off sexist tendencies of previous centuries. In the mock epic, Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer narrates a religious pilgrimage to Canterbury. One of the twenty-nine traveling characters mentioned is the Wife of Bath, a spirituous, opinionated woman who tells the tale of strength and dominance. Although some may argue that Chaucer is stuck in the past and therefore uses the Wife of Bath as a reinforcement for gender stereotypes, Chaucer proves her a strong, powerful character, unconfined to ludicrous gender roles.

"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.

The Wife of Bath's crusade to prove the worth of women does open the prologue to modern interpretations that reconfigure the Wife of Bath as a feminist

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

The Wife of Bath 's Prologue and Tale is about female empowerment it shows strong protagonists. I believe Geoffrey Chaucer used The Wife of Bath’s Tale to advocate for feminism. Chaucer used a strong female character to expose female stereotypes. It was an oppressive time for women in male-dominated society. During the Middle Ages, Chaucer wrote from a woman’s point of view something that was not normal at that time. He set his feminist ideals through the characters of the Wife of Bath and the old woman. He used subtle methods like humor to show his ideals. During Chaucer’s time nobody was used to the idea of women being equal to men, this idea did not exist. Chaucer expressed his ideas in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale by being one of the first to understand and acknowledge a women’s struggle in society, through this tale he shows the difference between men and women and their positions of power. In the Wife of Bath’s Tale, feminism is showed by the knight recognizing and listening to his wife. Chaucer is a feminist for his time because he used humor to mask his unpopular ideas he used these characters to voice his opinions.

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 Wife of Bath apparently attempts to emphasize female dominance over men. She contradicts many of the harsh customs and declares her own haughty assessment of women’s function in society and in relationships. In the story, Chaucer explains that what women want is sovereignty over their husbands. According to the tale, women desire to be treated as masters over their love. The story also suggests that

The Wife of Bath’s Tale features a character that seemed to resemble a feminist. But in Chaucer’s time, feminism was thought to be abnormal and the pilgrims

In view of the fact that the Wife of Bath herself does seem to behave in the manner women are accused of behaving by the anti-feminist writers, it is not impossible that the Wife of Bath's Prologue could be considered a vehicle for the anti-feminist message under the guise of a seeming "feminist" exterior, since her confession is frequently self-incriminating (e.g. her treatment of her husbands, her tendency to "swere and lyen") and demonstrates the truth of the claims made by the anti-feminists even while she is disparaging them and making them look bad -- as in her claim that anti-feminist writers (specifically the "clerks", i.e. learned scholars) are revenging themselves on women because of their own sexual impotence that prevents

Her self-proclaimed wisdom and experience makes her justly and to a certain extent credible enough to stand in the position that she does that is as heroine of her time. The Wife of Bath's Prologue is lengthy but everything said is important and captures a prime image of who the Wife of Bath truly is but also the society women are dealing with. Also her prologue retaliates against the problems of inferiority of women at hand. She does her best to defend herself for her life occurrences as well as preserving the merit of women. She explains "a sensible woman only busies herself to win love were there's none"(177), although one may say that this is a negative way for a woman to gain power .The positive note is that the wife of Bath cares to give the only advise she knows that has worked for her. The fact that the Wife of Bath cares about sharing advice in a sense that will cost women a chance to gain power ,cancels out the seven deadly sin of greed in her character.

In the 21st century, many women have been successful because of feminism. Women empowerment in our current time is a lot strong than in the Medieval period, but it is still weak. In “The Canterbury Tales” by Chaucer it represents strong feminist characters in, “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale”. The characters such as a Wife of Bath, an old hag, and also a Queen from “Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale,” play a feminist character in the male-dominated society during that time. Through these three characters, we see strong examples of feminism.

Many literary critics throughout the years have labeled the Wife of Bath, the "gap-toothed (23)" character of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, a feminist. She is a strong-willed and dominant woman who gets what she wants when she wants it. However, this is not the definition of a feminist. A feminist is someone who believes that women and men are equal, while also is able to recognize and appreciate the unique characteristics of both sexes. A feminist celebrates what it means to be a woman, and a feminist is definitely not what Chaucer meant his character to be interpreted as. If anything, the Wife of Bath could safely be called a sexist. She constantly emphasizes the negative

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

example of the complicated nature of Chaucer’s belief system. On the one hand, we have many strong female characters that despite still being extremely dependant on the men in their lives, know what they want out of life. From a contrasting point of view, readers see a group of men, including Chaucer as the writer himself, making fun of the very nature of women as a whole. Is this really how Chaucer felt towards women, or is the prologue of The Wife of Bath’s Tale simply a parody of the opinions of his time?