'Geoffrey Chaucer’s the Wife of Bath Essay\r'

'â€Å"The married woman of tubful’s Prologue and account explore many an(prenominal) an(prenominal) aspects of patriarchate †and sometimes reveal surprising attitudes indoors the tale and masterlogue.” Discuss.\r\nGeoffrey Chaucer’s the married woman of Bath is a text which is interwoven with references to patriarchate and unanticipated attitudes towards the social backdrop in which it was created.\r\nWritten in a catch where males dominated the hierarchy, Chaucer through the married woman portrays the nearly turn of traditional roles, and a sense of ascension and libberic instincts which at the time appe atomic number 18d extraordinary: â€Å"His poetical sensibility, combined with an immense understanding nearly men and women, enabled him to survey the life about him with such imaginative insight and power.” (Bennet 74) passim the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer speaks with remarkable authority on a huge range of subjects. This is perhaps m ake possible by the assortment of characters from on the whole areas of corporation which travel on the pilgrimage.\r\nAlisoun’s character is perhaps best encapsulated in the manner of her entrance to the Tales. Clothed in the finest garments, her â€Å"hosen weven of fyn scarlet need”, well-travelled and â€Å"carteyn so wroth”, the wife: â€Å"Strides into the Canterbury Tales on a life-size horse, spurs jangling, and immortalizey to assert herself in a company made up roughly entirely of men… She is a chivalrous housewife who is not just loss to star in a story, she is expiry to tell it.” (Reading the wife’s Prologue and Tale) A far cry from the meek and dominated maidens so a great deal portrayed in classic lit and fables prior to this; the married woman is independent, liberated and outspoken.\r\nThe married womans’ relationship to the men in her life is often one of meat domination and manipulation. She enjoys â₠¬Å"maistyre” over her male counterparts: Unne the mught they the statut retaine\r\nIn which that they were bounden un to me\r\nYe woot wel what I mean of this, pardee!\r\nAs help me God, I laughe whan I thynke\r\nHow piteously a- nyght I made hem swynke.\r\nThe Wife governs many aspects of her married mans’ lives, and rules with special sovereignty in the bedroom. Her sexual powers are and obvious ancestry of seduction and control over her hit the sackrs.\r\n actually much a manistic text, the Canterbury Tales evermore remind the reader of the knottyity of the human character. One practice of this could be the knight, the anatomy of â€Å"chivalrye, Trouthe and honour, freedom and curteisye” in the hierarchy of smart set at the time. At eldest he appears to check the specification perfectly. The however penetrative passing motion which slightly removes the Knight from this brave and refineeous tradition is left(p) with us when he is described as â €Å"meke as a mayde”.\r\nChaucer understood the skill of personality in each individual, and that a stereotype is never applicable. His characters almost everlastingly only very nearly fit the stereotype, and leave us scope to breathe unconvinced about the rest. This refusal to comply with what many would describe as the one dimensional and traditional Fairytale characters allows for the issues of patriarchy to be discusses liberally.\r\nInterestingly, even at points of text which recoil a relaxed and conversational tone, the Wife end littlely feels the requirement to reemphasise and argue her point with references to star divination and biblical references. These biblical references however are often contorted to suit the Wife’s requirement in the argument. For example the term from Genesis 1:22,28\r\nâ€Å"Go forth and multiply” is used as an excuse for the remarriage of the wife. This control and knowledge of the church’s text represent a disregar d to Patriarchal structures at many levels. The male governed Church, with its male oriented texts and flavour systems for the Wife especially represent the conquering of men. For Alisoun the structures of literature, religion and authority are machine-accessible in that they represent male dominance.\r\nThe Wife of Bath however cannot be completely classified as a pro feminist character. At many levels her dishonest, artful nature honours the common negative c at onceptions of anti- feminist movement at the time. Hansen (cited in Beidler) claims that this anti-feminist discourse mentioned higher up is less of a product of freshness towards patriarchal literature. â€Å"In billet she is trapped in a ‘prison house’ of anti-feminist discourse.\r\nShe is futile to see that her tactics patently reinforce all the stereotypical Medival ideas about women as cruel, emotional, and sexually voracious. Chaucer therefore is seen as reinforcing antifeminist views sort o f than undermining them.” Alisoun provides a vessal through which thousands of years of antifeminist literature are regurgitated with a revised endeavor and tone of archness. One example of this rule comes in Alisoun’s first language to the group, a repeat of earlier rhetoric (Awkroyd): Expeience, though no autoritee,\r\nWere in this world, is right ynogh for me\r\nTo speak of woe that is in marriage.\r\n irradiation Awkroyd (2005) believes that Chaucer â€Å"uses much of the antifeminist literature of the period but, by placing it in the Wife’s vast mouth, he lends it a new and dry lease of life.”\r\nThe Wife’s phoebe bird marriages on the outset portray a sense of calculated systematic marrying for the approach of wealth and power. However, it could be argued that Alison was more than simply a ruthless professional. There are arguments that the fourth, and especially the fifth husband Jenkin, captured her whap and stood in more than equal stead with their spouse: â€Å"That al myn herte I yaf unto his hold/ He was, I trowe, a xx winter oold, and I was fourty.” Although the true love described by Chaucer at first appears conformal to the description of traditional literature, as often the case in the Tales, there is a cause for disease.\r\nIn this case the scope in which the romance begins, the burial communion of husband number four, Alisoun covets the younger rascal boy and her future husband. In Jankin, Alisoun finds a man to which she is willing to submit. Cruel, abusive, manipulative this husband domineers the relationship, physically, emotionally and sexually. At this stage the once immovable opposition to patriarchy admits that he partner â€Å"so well koude he me glose”.\r\nFurthermore the Wife admits that it is this form of defence mechanism and subornation in a relationship which causes women to hunger what they cannot have: â€Å"wait what…crave” The totalism of Jenkin is further developed by Minnis, who claims Jenkin: â€Å"read aloud to her (translating from his anthology of antifeminist texts †It could be said because that she has learned at home, from her husband †how acquiescent and submissive can one take down?” (Minnis 249)\r\nThe Wife of Bath’s Tale and Prologue, as a text which attempts to stress Patriarchy, the attitudes portrayed are purposely less definable. Often categorised as all a feminist or anti- feminist text, The Wife of Bath is a complex mixture between the two. Chaucer, as unendingly does not provide specific or obvious attitudes to these hierarchies and relationships. Instead, like his characters he provides us with an insightful cross- section of the Patriarchal society in which he existed.\r\nReference heel\r\nAwkroyd, Peter. ‘The Tales of Canterbury.’ Chaucer. London: Vintage, 2005. 150 †53. Beidler, Peter G. Geoffrey Chaucer: The Wife of Bath. New York: Bedford Books, 1996. B ennet, H.S. ‘Chaucer.’ Oxford History of English literary productions: Chaucer and the Fifteenth Century. Ed. F.P Wilson and Bonamy Dobrée. London: Oxford, 1947. 74 †75. Minnis, Alastair. ‘Chapter 4 Gender as Fallibility.’ Fallible Authors: Chaucer’s Pardonerand Wife of Bath. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. 249. ‘Reading the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale.’ York Notes Advanced: The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale. London: Longman, 1998. 3 †10.\r\n'