The One and Only Wife of Bath Essay - 2762 Words

The One and Only Wife of Bath 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 â€Å"The Scholar†, â€Å"The Second Nun â€Å"The Reeve’s†, and â€Å"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 â€Å"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†¦show more content†¦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 Baths 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 theres 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. To expand on what was said about women and negative connotations that are placed upon them as the Wife of Bath points out was a matter that was seen even in writings of the time as her fifth husband read to her very often the wrong doings of wicked wives and how all women are a disturbance and only seek money and all the finer things from their men. The absolute goal was to make women look like nuisances. At this point there was much literal works to in her Prologue to prove the cynical mindShow MoreRelatedThe Wife Of Bath : A Story Of A Woman849 Words   |  4 PagesThe Wife of Bath is a story of a woman who has been married numerous times. The Wife was married five times to be exact. In which the Wife of Bath considers herself to be a professional due to her experiences of marriage. The Wife of Bath is on a defensive roll of defending marriage. This could be due to the many criticisms she has received from society itself. 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