Canterbury Tales Essay - Marriage and the Role of Women...

Marriage and the Role of Women in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue The Canterbury Tales, begun in 1387 by Geoffrey Chaucer, are written in heroic couplets iambic pentameters, and consist of a series of twenty-four linked tales told by a group of superbly characterized pilgrims ranging from Knight to Plowman. The characters meet at an Inn, in London, before journeying to the shrine of St Thomas a Becket at Canterbury. The Wife of Bath is one of these characters. She bases both her tale and her prologue on marriage and brings humor and intrigue to the tales, as she is lively and very often crudely spoken. Her role as a dominant female contrasts greatly with the others in the tales, like the prim and proper Prioress represents the†¦show more content†¦The wife is also able to dominate her husbands by other methods, which she often recommends to other wys wyfs. Here Chaucer is obviously appealing to his audience as there are no other wives on the pilgrimage but also the Wife may be suggesting that is not only her who acts in this manner therefo re condoning it. She firstly accuses them of indecent behavior thus covering her own faults and then reverts back to nagging. Her ability to nag and argue is complemented by her knowledge of many parables, fables and even astrology and she uses this to get the upper hand on her husbands but is defeated by Jankin as a scholar at Oxford, which demonstrates the repression of women through lack of education. Wealth and property feature heavily in the wife’s portrayal of marriage and along with the issue of her independence is responsible for many of her marital conflicts. The first three husbands riche and olde were married each for hir land and hir tresoor then discarded as the Wife looks for other prospects. When one of these husbands tries to restrict the Wife’s spending she refuses to let him be both maister of my body and of my good so refuses sexual favours in return for her freedom as she will not become a mere possession. She generalizes that women love no man that taketh or keepth charge suggesting an element of independence and individualism in 14th century marriage. The wife resents being controlled; sheShow MoreRelatedThe Characters in The Canterbury Tales Essay4000 Words   |  16 PagesThe Purpose of the   Characters in The Canterbury Tales      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The characters introduced in the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales each represent a stereotype of a kind of person that Chaucer would have been familiar with in 14th Century England. Each character is unique, yet embodies many physical and behavioral traits that would have been common for someone in their profession. 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