Gender Role In Wife Of Bath's Tale By Geoffrey Chaucer

In the beginning of “The Wife of Bath's Tale”, the Knight was portrayed to have a lot of power, however it occurred only towards women. The Knight saw a maiden one day, “And of that

Women in the middle ages were seen as the inferior gender. In the Canterbury Tales, the portrayal of women during that time is shown. The great chain of being was the idea that the position of one in society was based on the closeness to God. In the Wife of Bath, the wife wants women to be superior to men, moving their positon closer to God. Palomon and Arcite from The Knights Tale, demonstrate the idea of courtly love toward Emelye. Courtly love was a romantic relationship between a knight and a lady from the court. The Prologue, gives background information about all the characters who tell a tale. One of the women is the wife of bath, who is the only one who exceeded her sphere. Through different ideas, these three tales portray women differently.

In The Wife of Bath’s Tale, Geoffrey Chaucer uses the tale as a fable to reveal the human nature of shallowness by its plot and characters. The story begins from the ancient days of King Arthur, when the “hero” of the story condemned sexual assault, but then was saved by an ugly woman. Chaucer created characters that are lusty, greedy, materially desires, and amazingly shallow in order to compare and comment on the lifestyle of the higher classes at the time.

In the fourteen century, men were always the superior, head of the household, the breadwinner, but women were always inferior, they would stay at home, do the house work, cook, and never would have a job. Well, times have changed. Women are reaching an equal status to men in political, social and economic matters It’s part of the idea called Feminism. In many ways the Wife of Bath displays many characteristic of women in the 21st century. Instead of being directed by men, she views herself as an independent person. Throughout her introduction of the tale, and the story itself, we see the Wife of Bath as an experienced, intellectual woman, who despite living in a world of patriarchal power, provides for herself financially, emotionally, and physically. As a feminist icon, she confronts serious social issues that illustrate the subjugation women faced.

Beowulf and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” are both narratives in which gender acts as an important theme within their individual communities; both have underlying meanings when it comes to defining what the role men and women in a good community should be. Or in other words, both stories paint a vivid picture of the role of women during the medieval time period, by suggesting that one gender had more power over another. However, these two narratives take alternative paths when expressing their views; Beowulf conveys its message through what is missing, while “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” incorporates satire and uses explicit narrative when telling the experience of a woman that is highly different from other women in her time. Furthermore, another difference that is appealing to the reader’s eyes, besides the way the two narratives reflect to women’s role in medieval times, is that men become the hero in Beowulf, while “the wife”, so a woman, becomes the authority figure in the story of “The Wife of Bath’s Tale.” I want to first introduce the two main differences between the two narratives and then I will explain how regardless of the differences, both of these narratives’ main goal is to show that women had less power and a good community back that time was male dominated.

The Wife of Bath in Chaucer's, “The Canterbury Tales”, is a successful cloth maker, “At making cloth she had so great a bent she bettered those of Ypres and even of Gent.”

In “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” the knight’s punishment for raping a girl is to set out on a year long journey to find out what women desire most. This story is sexist portraying women in a negative light.

Chaucer uses both the tales of the Wife of Bath and the Pardoner to display similar morals which lead to the common theme that the best way to resolve a flaw is the realization and correction of faults.

Chaucer characterizes The Wife of Bath as controlling and powerful. The Wife of Bath was a complete contradiction of the typical female, during this time. The average woman was submissive and reserved. Whereas, The Wife of Bath possessed character traits that one would associate with men. Chaucer emphasizes this trait by describing her in such ways one would describe a man. He describes her face as being “Bold, handsome, and red in hue”(468). Handsome is an adjective used to describe men. Chaucer purposefully characterizes her this way to compare her to men. The Wife of Bath struggled with healthy relationships because she wanted to be the dominant and most powerful figure in her relationships. The Wife of Bath yearned for power and was determined

Geoffrey Chaucer, an English poet during the middle ages, wrote The Canterbury Tale’s Wife of Bath; he was born from a humble middle-class family and climbed his way up through the aristocracy. The Wife of Bath main protagonist is molded by a sexist culture of her times. My goal with this paper is to shed light on The Wife of Bath’s main character. A story of a smart, strong-willed woman who manipulates her way to financial and personal independence, is she a feminist or a smart and scheming woman?

In the 18th century Wollstonecraft changed Women's rights forever when she published “ A Vindication of the Rights of Woman”. During the 18th century women were supposed to stay at home and cook, clean, and take care of their family. Therefore, women were not allowed to vote or study history, art, geography, etc. Wollstonecraft believed that both men and women had equal abilities, and they should both have equal rights. Wollstonecraft says, “ Reason and experience convince me that the only method of leading women to fulfill their peculiar duties is to free them from all restraint by allowing them to participate in the inherent right of mankind. Make them free, and they will quickly become wise and virtuous”. In this quote Wollstonecraft tells us how women should have the right to an equal education as men. Wollstonecraft knew that women were wise and were able to reason, just like men do. After publishing “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” Wollstonecraft showed women that they were just as equal as men and they could do what they wanted to do. Wollstonecraft was an amazing philosopher and changed the world for

After reading the prologue of the Wife of Bath’s Tale, it didn’t greatly astonished me. I don’t pictured women in the Middle Ages as second class citizens. In my opinion, they had more rights in Europe than they would in the Middle East or Africa today. If their husbands died, the wives were able to owe the land; the oldest child, despite being male or female, would inherit from their father; and can receive high positions (of course, not as high as the men). The most famous of all women in the Middle Ages is Eleanor of Aquitaine and Joan of Arc. I understand once women were married, they had to be subordinate to their husbands, but it was generally expected that they work alongside their husbands in their business. And once monasteries were

She reasoned that because men and women were both undeniably human beings, one should not be treated in a better way than the other. She wanted women to be allowed the rights of all men- life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. In her influential work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, she writes about how society views women as weak and treats them as inferior to men. She notices that any woman who tries to step out of society’s expectations will be looked down upon- “[Women] were made to be loved, and must not aim at respect, lest they should be hunted out of society as masculine.” She points out that in order for children to be raised as respectable people, their mothers should be educated and well-respected, since it is their job to raise the children. Wollstonecraft believed that a more educated woman would make a better wife, as

The Wife of Bath’s Prologue stays consistent with the facts that experience is better than the societal norms, specifically those instilled by the church leadership. Chaucer uses the Wife of Bath to display the insanity of the church, but through switching and amplifying their view of men and chastity onto the opposite gender. The church doctrine at the time held celibacy in an idolized manner, forgetting the inability for humans to ever reach perfection, or live up to this standard. They also did not hold women in a high regard at all, again this is where Chaucer flips the role, as the Wife of Bath describes her five marriages in her prologue, essentially describing each as a conquest, where the result is her having all control.

However, there are differences between women and men in practice. Compared to men, women have always been trained as suspects, sussees, and smokers because they have received poorer education. The Wollstonecraft against this practice, 'Equal educational opportunities for girls and boys', 'Equal political and social rights for women and men', 'Opening of all schools and universities both gods', 'Women's man's understanding of his