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Essay / Analysis of the Wife of Bath as Honest
The Canterbury Tales presents the Wife of Bath as an honest woman in conflict with her society. “Honest” has two meanings here. This implies either that the Wife of Bath is a moral and Christian member of society or, more literally, that she is in fact telling the truth. If the latter is true, then her opinions place her in conflict with her society. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The Wife of Bath is by no means an “honest” woman in the first sense of the word. In the opening lines of the prologue, she is described as wearing "trousers...of scarlet fyn reed" to church on Sundays. This clothing choice is not appropriate for the occasion, showing that she shows little respect for formality. Additionally, her choice of "scarlet" clothing signifies her views on sex, which we find out later. The scarlet somehow evokes the impression of a "red light" in the middle of what would be a church full of dark colors, perhaps alluding to her prostitute ways. Additionally, on the same page it says that she had "housbonds at the golden church, she had five" and that "she passed many strem". The first tells us that she was married five times, and the second suggests – perhaps with some sexual overtones – that she traveled a lot. Chaucer is well known for her physiognomy, and his description of the Wife of Bath refers to her as "Gat-tothed", a woman who had a brow "as brooding as a bokeler" and also a woman who "advanced with ease" All of the above suggests that this was an overtly sexual woman, with an appetite for sex, who was beautiful and moved easily "because she knew this art, the old dauce". At the beginning of the prologue, we can see that the Wife of Bath is definitely not an "honest" woman in the sense of the first definition of the word. However, there is some debate as to whether the second definition can be considered. as true. As Thomas Hobbes wrote in Leviathan: “True and false are attributes of speech, not of things, and where there is no speech, there is neither truth nor falsehood. There may be error, as when we expect what will not be, or suspect what has not been: but in neither case can a man be accused of lying. Both the Prologue and the Wife of Bath's Tale are recordings of what she said on her trip to Canterbury. So, as Hobbes states, his words can be true or false. However, even if she said something that appears to be true, the facts may be wrong in some way, or changed, resulting in an error. Ultimately, whether the Wife of Bath is telling the truth or not, her views remain in conflict with those of contemporary society. The views on society discussed by Chaucer were deeply rooted in the Christian faith, particularly Catholicism. The Canterbury Tales were written in the midst of a period of strict religious and moral belief. Furthermore, events such as the fall of Constantinople and the papal bull Dum Diversas, in 1453 and 1452 respectively, reinforced society's demand for a pure faith. The Church's counter-reaction to the spread of Islam in Europe, to the invasion of the Moors in Spain and the Turks on the borders of Europe, allowed the affirmation of the Christian faith to be stronger than ever. Thus, society operated according to a strict religious moral code. Additionally, at the time the Canterbury Tales were written, a feudal system was still in place in England. This archetypal social structure was.