The Wife Of Bath And Women s Rights Essay - 1948 Words

Being the most interesting character The Wife of Bath has a unique way of doing things and taking things in the matter of her own hands. She has had five different husbands and transparently confesses to wedding the larger part of them for their cash. The spouse has all the earmarks of being more blunt and free than most ladies of medieval circumstances, and has in this manner been thought to symbolize the reason for woman s rights; some even allude to her as the primary real women s activist character in writing. Perusers and researchers most likely contend for this thought on the grounds that in The Canterbury Stories, she interestingly gives her own knowledge and sentiments on how relations amongst men and ladies ought to be done. Likewise, the importance of her story is that for all intents and purposes all ladies need to be allowed control over themselves and their association with their spouses, which appears to persuade individuals that the Wife of Bath needs to be seen as som e kind of progressive women s activist of her time. This idea, however, is incorrect. The truth is that the Wife of Bath, or Alison, only affirms negative generalizations of ladies; she is tricky, unbridled, and undercover. She does next to nothing that is really engaging or progressive for ladies, however rather tries to enable herself by utilizing her body to pick up control over her different spouses. Within this paper, I am going to discuss the way Wife of Bath thinks, what she thinksShow MoreRelatedComparing Beowulf And The Wife Of Bath1553 Words   |  7 PagesThe Wife of Bath Tale: The Battle of the Sexes Women from the beginning of time have been determined to make their mark in the world of a so-called man s world. Women believed they deserved the right to express their opinions about family matters as well as business affairs. The women in Beowulf and The Wife of Bath Tale have different issues, however they are for all the same reason: be heard by the power dominating sex. In the eighth century men were thought of as being superior to women. InRead MoreWilliam Shakespeare s Othello And The Canterbury Tales Essay1369 Words   |  6 Pagesâ€Å"Othello† and in Geoffrey Chaucer’s novel, The Canterbury Tales, include women throughout both novels. The novel, Othello is written in 1603 and The Canterbury Tales is written in the 1400’s, during the late Middle Ages. Women during the Late Middle Ages and the early Modern Period were portrayed differently then how women are portrayed today. Typically, during this time period of 1400-1600’s, women roles during th is time was weak. Women were only allowed to listen to the men in the house and they reallyRead MoreThe Wife Of Bath s Prologue1134 Words   |  5 PagesThe Wife of Bath uses bible verses in â€Å"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 becauseRead MoreThe Wife Of Bath, By William Shakespeare1636 Words   |  7 PagesThe Wife of Bath tale, was a turnaround for women and how they are viewed in society and in tales. It took a women’s prologue and a tale about a wife that created a different look for women and a different role that they could play beside s a hopeless character. Even though it wasn’t normal for a woman to have dominance in society let alone a tale. The article even explained how the women went through by being widow. This prologue and tale showed us how women were able to change that and do so. InRead MoreThe Wife Of Bath And King Lear843 Words   |  4 Pagesroles have been defining women for centuries, however the women in both The Wife of Bath and King Lear violate just about every gender role of their time. The wife of Bath, Cordelia, Regan, and Goneril are all unapologetic head-strong, independent, powerful women. These women totally contrasted their literary peers of their time who were relatively submissive and docile, such as Queen Wealhtheow from Beowulf and Bertilak’s wife from Gawain and the Green Knight. The Wife of Bath herself follows no genderRead MoreChaucers The Canterbury Tales1381 Words   |  6 Pagesissues of the society including how women are treated. Pertaining to women’s role in the society, the Middle Ages was also considered a patriarchal society which is why in the tales, the author depicts the inequality that is resulting from this. Despite what many would think based on his writing, Chaucer is not a misogynist. Chaucer only shows the perception of women in his society with an indication of his feminist views as well. Looking back through history, women and men were treated differentlyRead MoreChaucer s The Man Of Law s Tale1269 Words   |  6 Pagessame decade when Chaucer likely wrote the Wife of Bath‘s Tale, England was going through a large political and social change. The high profile abduction and marriage of Sir Thomas West’s daughter, Eleanor, touched off a reform of statutory law regarding raptus, commonly referred to as the 1382 Statute of Rapes (Bovaird-Abbo). The law established patriarchal control over female sexuality by devaluing consent and de-emphasizing sexual assault (Edwards). The Wife begins her tale by depicting the goldenRead MoreThe Fight For Gender Equality Essay1357 Words   |  6 PagesWhat are women? What are they? Are they serpents, wolves, lions, dragons, vipers or devouring beasts and enemies of the human race†¦. But by God! if they are your mothers, your sisters, your daughters, your wives and your companions; they are yourselves and you yourselves are them, (Akkerman 1). What are women? Better yet, how important are women? As important people, women play specific roles based on societal expectations and dictations. In the beginning, women were not seen as equal figures,Read MoreGender Stereotypes : Macbeth And The Wife Of Bath1515 Words   |  7 Pagesgender stereotypes still exist, although many women throughout the history had put their effort to lessen it. As the matter of fact, women often faced many obstacles due to the well-known gender stereotypes. This triggered the literature authors to write a literature in a feminist view, w hich ultimately had led feminism to predominantly act as a common literary device throughout the medieval ages and the Renaissance. While many authors portrayed women as a weak stereotypical female, some authorsRead MoreThe Wife Of Bath s Tale1490 Words   |  6 PagesIn the Wife of Bath s tale, the main idea we can get is that women want dominance over men (Chaucer 143). Back in Medieval England, I think it would have been a far fetched idea for women to have dominance over men. For most of history, we see women being a submissive partner to a strong and noble man. Dominance over the noble husband would be a fantasy that a wife could only dream of because she knew it would never happen. If you were to fast forward to the 1900’s, a typical household still consists