Canterbury Tales
In the Canterbury tales The Wife of Bath Chaucer is presenting a women's viewof the reality in the 14th century. The Wife of Bath's Tale is told by the character named Alison who explains the tricks of her trade and defends a life style that might be shocking if it were not presented with such energy and humor. The Wife of Bath's Tale is spoken by a woman of exceeding experience with husbands, with strong opinions on how married life should beconducted. The open discussion about women's views about love and lust makes this prologue a revolutionary document. The Wife has multiple marriages: "...Five husbands have I had at the church door." (p183) She emphasizes that out of the five three were old and rich and two young and wild. The older ones, she says, were good because she could bring them under her control through her tirades against the ways women are treated. Further, once they had passed on she had more love to give but moreover she required more love. She does not believe in monogamy in fact she believes that people can love and marry more than one person in their lifetime "Welcome the sixth, whenever he comes along."(p.185)Chaucer is able to undermine the traditional medieval view, sanctioned by the church f
The wife of Bath is a unique character the life of which goes against all that society wants of women. Her emphasis on matters of the flesh is evident though the prologue and it is always a touchy subject. Her marriages do not produce any children but only kills men that she was married to. It seems that love is not what she is after. In the beginning of the tale she says that she will talk from her experience she does exactly that and it seems that in her experience she only loved one husband out of the five. It seems that love is of little interest to her. You compare it also to wild fire: the more it burn, the more it wants to consume everything that will burn. Her lust for him made her give him everything she owed. You say that jus as worms destroy a tree, just as wife destroys her husband"(p. Chaucer that her quest is not over yet, because she is still looking for potential husband in her voyage. Her marriages do not stop her from looking for love at all the other places. In our society we view love as a creation of new lives but she sees it as the opposite. "My fifth husband, God bless his soul, whom I took for love and not money"(p.
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Acceptance Essays
