Preview

The Rape In The Wife Of Bath's Tale

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
225 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Rape In The Wife Of Bath's Tale
In one of many Canterbury’s tales, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” focuses on a knight who committed a rape crime, and was sentenced to seek out the answer of every woman's request or he would die. The knight marries an old unattractive woman, as a last hope to fulfilling his sentence. The knight was given the opportunity to change the woman he married to becoming an ugly, old, and trustable wife or a young, attractive, unloyal wife. The knight answered correctly, receiving both of what he wanted in his wife, thus the knight deserves this reward.
The knight committed a wrongful crime, instead of being retained as his sentence; he was given the opportunity to seek out the answer of what every woman desires as a assimilation of his crime. Having the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The knight’s punishment in “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” does not fit his crime. He revoltingly raped an innocent young woman and got away with it. His punishment taught him nothing but merely rewarded him for his indecent actions by giving him a beautiful wedded wife for the rest of his life. A man like the knight does not deserve to be rewarded for mistreating and taking advantage of women the way he did. Given the gravity of the crime he committed, a much more reasonable punishment could have been to behead the knight.…

    • 226 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the Wife of Bath and in the Pardoner there are many similariries and differences between the two tales. In the tales one of the similarities is that they both have experienced the world. There is one difference between them just in traveling around the world because the Wife of Bath experienced the world by traveling and also in a sexual sense. She goes on for a while in her tale about how she would be the best person to talk about marriage and how you can make it work, or how it wont work. And she states that she ahs the right to say this because she has been married fiive times, and she knows what will and wont work in a marriage. One of the big reasons that she said all of this is so that she can destroy the idea that men are the dominate species and they have a strong power over women, and that if women are given everything that they need, want, and desire, then thhey will be willing to do anything that their husbands want and they will be faithful to them always. While these stories are exptremly different in what they are talking about there are still a few things that they have in common. The Pardoner is all about the journey to canterbury and how they decidd to make the journey a little more bearable so they decided to have a story telling contest. So they decided have each of the men tell a story on their way to canterbury and on their way back and the Inn keeper will decide on the winner. Except for the fact that they never got to finsh their stories on the way back becase the…

    • 444 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Meanwhile, in “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”, the lesson features how one’s social standing does not equate to the quality of their character. During a lengthy speech, an old, poor woman admonishes a much younger, wealthier knight of over his disgust in her. In her passionate…

    • 357 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    I usually look at the picture in the class and the worksheet for any hint of an answer to our group work. The pictures of Queen Elizabeth help remind us that she too was once like us, young and lively. Through this, we can related to her as a young adult, rather than an old political figure we see her as today.…

    • 284 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The story the Wife of Bath and Sir Gawain tell are the same general plot and climax. The sequence of events that occur happen in the same order just to the different characters. King Arthur rules both stories and give the decision of the punishment to the different girls to decide what is to be done to each knight. The question arises, what is it that women desire most? In each of the stories, the knight finds the answer on the last day of hunting. The knight in the Wife of Bath’s tale saves his own life, whereas the knight in Sir Gawain’s tale saves King Arthur. Each of the tales differ in focus and literary themes, due to the power and position of the Wife of Bath, and the true test of an honorary knight .…

    • 664 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When studying the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Wife of Bath’s Tale, both coming from the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, you see a common theme of feminism. Also, you get a good sense of the of the anti feminist cultural norms and ideas regarding women in the medieval era. Alisoun, The Wife of Bath, focuses most upon the common stereotypes of women. These stereotypes include the idea that women only marry into money in order to live a lavish lifestyle off of their husband’s income as well as the belief that women will never stop talking to their husbands. Stemming from this, the common belief among men was that if you were to get married, it would ruin your chances of success later in life. The Wife of Bath opposed all of these…

    • 802 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The topic that I chose was gender bias. I think this topic most closely relates with Wife of Bath's. Gender bias is the unequal treatment in employment opportunities. This may include; promotion, pay, benefits and/or privileges. Many people believe that racial discrimination no longer exists, but I disagree.…

    • 434 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer has remained as one of the most developed pieces of satirical work. Each of Chaucer’s pilgrims depict traits that often conflict with the positions they hold in society. Between four particular tales, the characteristics of their statuses become sardonic over exaggerations of the traditional roles found in marriage. The speakers of each fable portray their perspectives on the institution, showing the complexity in defining the fundamentals of a successful marriage. Throughout these tales, Chaucer shows contrasting perspectives on where governance lies in a marriage and how to achieve bliss in such a custom.…

    • 1530 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In most medieval literature, characters are portrayed to have different views of injustice. In the story, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” the Wife’s views of justice and fairness can be seen in many different ways. The wife used a form of justice that was not death, and the knight payed the price for his dishonorable act by the end of the story. While telling the story, the Wife of Bath speaks as though the queen demanded justice for the knight. “He was as good as dead but that the queen, and the other ladies too, implored the king to exercise his grace,” (Chaucer, lines 68-71).…

    • 265 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    At the end of the tale, the old, ugly wife gave the knight the option to either be married to her as an aged and homely woman but she would be faithful to him, or he could choose for her to be beautiful and young but be unfaithful to him. He replied, “My lady and my love, and wyf so dere, I put me in your wyse governance; cheseth your-self, which may be most plesance, and most honour to yow and me also. I do no fors the whether of the two; for as yow lyketh, it suffiseth me” (Chaucer 374-379). This meant that he gave all of the control to his wife for her to make the decision, therefore understanding that women are ultimately capable of making the decisions in a relationship, and proving his growth from a man that just wanted dominance over women by rape, to a man who could give women the power over him. Because of the price he had to pay, most say he learned his lesson and deserved to be pardoned from the rape he had…

    • 619 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The wife of bath is a very confident woman who, in the prologue of her tale, talks about her five husbands. She seems very satisfied with her life and her choices; she is fulfilled regardless of the men she was married to. Even with all their deaths, she remains happy and independent. “But even now I will strive to be merry.” (Lines 478-479) The story she tells is about a knight who, after he rapes a young girl, is forced by the queen to find out what women desire the most. He finally discovers that what women want the most is to have sovereignty over their husbands. This goes directly along with the character of the wife of bath, who loved the control she had over her husbands more than anything else. The story proves that the answer to what women want the most is not just one static statement. What a person desires most in life depends on their own character and their own…

    • 830 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The roles of who deals with the knight are switched. When the king declares one thing, the queen and ladies decide another. “Ceaselessly, he gave the queen the case,” and she gives the knight one year to find what women truly want (WBT 72). At the end of that year the knight meets an old hag who gives him the answer in exchange for his hand in marriage. The Wife of Bath tells a story where message is that women should be obeyed in all matters. The queen and ladies of the court decide the Knights fate instead of the men and the old hag, being everything the Knight despises, ends up being his savior. In the Wife of Bath’s life she is the old hag. She may not be beautiful or young, but she knows what she wants and gets…

    • 583 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Wife Of Bath Analysis

    • 707 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales: “The Wife of Bath”, one acquires insight on the character Wife of Bath and how her ideals and principles differ from the customs in medieval times. Wife of Bath was a perceptive and dominant women that was looked upon as a gold digger that used her body as a way to get around the bushes with men. While it may be true, it is without a doubt that she expressed actions that where desired by many women at the time, but were resistant to show these actions because it went against social regulations.…

    • 707 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” the old woman seems to ask the knight a naïve request; there is no hint that what she will ask of him is to marry her: “Swear me true that whatsoever I ask of you, you’ll do it if it lies whithin you might…”. After the knight returns to the queen, and the answer the old woman gave the knight is the one the queen looked for, the old woman’s intent becomes clear: “Before the court I ask you, then, sir knight, To take me, as you wife.”…

    • 934 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” Chaucer uses the old woman’s unexpected contrasts between good poverty and bad wealth to show that poverty is actually better than being wealthy. The old woman describes “The poor can dance and sing in the relief / Of having nothing that will tempt a thief/ Though it can be hateful, poverty is good, / A great incentive to a livelihood” (270). Although her life is near the bottom of the social hierarchy, “dance and sing” suggests hope, happiness, and celebration. Adding on, “great incentive” adds a positive perspective towards poverty as if it is not as bad as one thinks because the poor have a lot of motivation to work for a living. She suggests that if one is not wealthy, one can enjoy their lives by looking in a positive direction. Furthermore, the old woman illustrates her life as a lower class, and suggests that “Poverty often, when the heart is lowly/Brings one to God and teaches what is holy /gives knowledge of oneself” (290). The old woman is poor and taught herself to become self-sufficient, and poverty taught her “what was holy.” and also taught morals of what is right and wrong, and one’s true talents. Wealth might seem as a success, but the Old Woman says “Poverty is, though wanting in estate/ a kind of wealth that none calumniate” (290). “Wanting” is to lack, “estate” as social class or the possession of money, and “calumniate” meaning making false and defamatory statements, suggesting that “Poverty” can not be criticized. Although the old woman’s family is destitute, the real poverty lies in the rich’s avarice, where the wealthy are unable to stop their greediness. The old woman suggests the humorous contrast that the poor value their possessions, whereas the high class’s visions are clouded due to not appreciating towards their surroundings which leads to avarice for material possession. Lastly, the repetition of “poverty” signifies the position of the woman is in, and although her status may not be superior, the wisdom…

    • 379 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays