Wife Of Bath Prologue Analysis
Based on the prologue, I believe the Wife of Bath refers to the Bible frequently to show points it makes in stories that seem to be different from what we could call the ‘societal norms’ of the time. She does this especially often in the beginning, specifically when she is defending her having five husbands. Though it was never stated, the biblical references she made indicated she was defending her position, and that it was not considered normal for a woman to have this many husbands within her lifetime.
Using the Bible as a defense for anyone’s actions at that time could have been seen as reasonable since England was very religious at the time. This first indicates why she is able to make so many references and have people comprehend what she is saying to them, since they have all read at least most of the Bible in their lifetimes. This also indicates that she believes her actions are completely justified, since the Bible backs them up. …show more content…
The reason for this becomes more apparent later in the prologue when she talks about her fifth husband, who constantly read a book on anti-feminism, and was able to see all of these examples of “wicked women.” Based on the evidence the Wife presents, it appears that society back then has adopted a sort of “see it and believe it” attitude since they were willing to take the many more ‘modern’ and ‘current’ examples of “wicked women” as how a woman should be viewed compared to the Bible’s few historical examples of “good
Using the Bible as a defense for anyone’s actions at that time could have been seen as reasonable since England was very religious at the time. This first indicates why she is able to make so many references and have people comprehend what she is saying to them, since they have all read at least most of the Bible in their lifetimes. This also indicates that she believes her actions are completely justified, since the Bible backs them up. …show more content…
The reason for this becomes more apparent later in the prologue when she talks about her fifth husband, who constantly read a book on anti-feminism, and was able to see all of these examples of “wicked women.” Based on the evidence the Wife presents, it appears that society back then has adopted a sort of “see it and believe it” attitude since they were willing to take the many more ‘modern’ and ‘current’ examples of “wicked women” as how a woman should be viewed compared to the Bible’s few historical examples of “good