In the Clerk's tale, Geoffrey Chaucer expresses his views towards women very openly. As the marquis tests Griselda, his wife, the author makes her entire patience and direct obedience to the husband seem rather ironic and senseless. To make this irony even more obvious, he adds his "Envoy" after finishing the manuscript. Despite a very discriminating position against women throughout the Clerk's tale, Chaucer challenges this first view in "The Wife of Bath's Tale" and her prologue. In the prologue, the reader discovers new opinions on women that might have been important to Chaucer as a person. He feels that women are equal to men, but yet he cannot express all his feelings personally because this would endanger his repetition as a writer. Generally, Griselda from the Clerk's tale and the Wife of Bath are entirely different characters with different views upon women's place in society, but Chaucer stays neutral and has a rather central view in order not to shock the men who read his tales at that time.
             In the "Envoy," Chaucer reemphasizes the fact that Griselda's actions were not only painful for her, but also ineffective and did not make any changes to her position. "Griselda and her patience both are dead And buried in some Italian vale." (Chaucer, p. 355) In this quote Chaucer describes that men and women are remembered and cherished for the actions, not for their inactions. Women like Griselda do not have any impact on society which makes Chaucer angry because they simply should have taken the initiative. Then, Chaucer turns directly to the female readers. "O noble wives, in highest prudence bred, Allow no such humility to nail Your tongues." (Chaucer, p.355) This quote clearly indicates that Chaucer is a man who does not favor the normal, cooking housewife living at home, but who wants
             women to go out and claim their right of real life and resp...