In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer paints a rich and unexpected portrait of The Wife of Bath, which is already well established at the beginning of the prologue to his tale. His unabashedly honest diction and confessions, as well as the inclusion of personal anecdotes, contribute to the unexpectedness of his prologue's content; these aspects of the prologue all give his words, and therefore his character, a somewhat controversial, even taboo, element. The boldness of her character, as evidenced by the blatant honesty and shamelessness with which she reveals much of her history and experience, particularly in terms of marriages, not only creates a sense of separation between her and the other women, but also gives her as a radical among the others present. Her role as wife, as described in the prologue, is unconventional for the time, as her desires and faults are largely at her discretion and in her own hands; her marriages are presented as malleable in response to her wishes. 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 uses biblical evidence to challenge and oppose conventional expectations of women regarding marriage and sex. She first maintains that society is misogynistic and that the positions and images of women necessarily suffer if they do not adhere to all the behaviors of virgins or servile wives. One of the first and most important points made by the Wife of Bath is that sex and remarriage should not be viewed unfavorably as they often are, and she supports this at length, admitting the strength of her own sexual appetites. It is clear to the audience that the wife identifies first as a person and a woman, and secondly as a wife, particularly due to the fact that she has had five husbands and claims that she “will welcome the sixth, when he does”. To appease myself, I would not keep myself chaast in everything; » with the justification that “the Apostle says that I am free” (lines 45-46, 49). She gives the clever justification that if men prefer women to be chaste and advise them to remain so, “..counseling is nat comandement”; (line 67). She particularly criticizes patriarchal constraints when she argues lightly by asking: “And of course, if there was no seed y-sowe, Virginitee. What did he make it grow” (lines 71-72). While it is clear that the Bath Wife is empowered and bold in various ways in speaking out against the status quo and challenging traditional masculine ideas of how she should behave, she is also contradictory at times , for example when she emphasizes: “For well, you know, a lord in his house, / He has not all the vases of gold; / Soma was in tree, and doon his lord is in service” ( line 99-101). This seems to be something of a change, as it positions her as a subordinate, admittedly, for misogynistic reasons, but she doesn't seem to be upset by it. His resignation to this fact is probably due to his belief that his views are correct, for otherwise God would have condemned marriage and procreation if he had wanted women to remain virgins. In her manner of addressing fellow pilgrims, the Wife of Bath establishes polarity between her individual self and the group of them. She said to them with confidence: “And, lords, by your survey, I am born. I will give the flour of all my age/In the deeds and fruits of marriage” (lines 112-14). At various points, she appears to invoke controversial points and conclusions not only to hold her ground, but also toscandalize those around them and separate or distinguish themselves. Her arguments are both bold and persistent, especially as she begins to discuss how she gained and maintained power in her marriage. For example, not only does she say that "How far I would use my instrument/As freely as my Makere sent it" (lines 148-49), but she also states that her husband will be "at once [her ] detour and [his] slave,/And will have his tribulacioun with/On his flesh, while [she is] his wife” continuing to explain that she possesses his body during their marriage (lines 155-59). To cement this assertion that their bodies are all due to each other and destined to copulate, she raises the important question “..and for this/ Of begetting, then we do not displease God./ Why sholde men them -even in their books sette, / That a man must pay his debt to his wife? Now with what he must make his payment, / If he hath not used his one instrument” (lines 127-32). However, this point also implies the idea that without his sexual offerings to his wife, a man may have little or questionable other value. It is already unexpected that a woman would assert such equality in a marriage or suggest that she owns her husband as much as her husband owns her, but the Wife of Bath goes further than these notions, effectively saying that without one man offers his wife the sexual pleasure, how can he really please or satisfy her otherwise? Her ideas here are relevant as she follows to give listeners insight into the arguments she steered in the direction of giving herself more control, throughout her many marriages. An important point that she raises with her husbands, in a quite calculated but nonetheless inspired manner, is that they cannot be masters of both her body and her possessions because women value their freedom ( line 322). The Wife of Bath demonstrates the impossibility of a woman being both satisfied and oppressed. By imitating for the audience parts of generic arguments that took place between her and several or all of her husbands, she shows that her main motive which secretly governs all her fights with her husbands is to conquer power. jealousy for legitimate reasons, it would persuade them that their anger was paranoid and unjustified. She also looks at many circumstances in which she will invent her husband's guilt in a given situation, in order to satisfy her wishes. She shamelessly describes how she tells her husbands about some of the ways they have wronged her when they are drunk, saying that "Lords, it is indeed so, as you have understood, / Baar, I stiffened me, my old houbondes on honde, / That thus they seyden in her dronkenesse,” finally to get what she wants (lines 379-81). The way she denies sex to her husbands in order to force them to negotiate with her, despite admitting how much of a sex drive she has, shows that her ultimate goal in her marriage tends to be to maintain the power so that power is transferred. that she always has more. The Wife of Bath expresses her ability to manipulate her husbands through her examples, but she also shows that she does not tend to use this ability unless she is in an inferior position and must therefore change its situation. She admits that women are dishonest and calculating by nature, and that "God has deceit, tears, and spies/ toward women, while they may live" (line 401). Ironically, the listener or reader feels like they are witnessing learned advice based on immense experience in many of his stories. While they are represented and confessed intypically crude and brutal terms, she takes on the role of a mentor who gives women valuable advice on how to run their marriages, which becomes evident when she warns the audience that this tale "Wynne, whoever can, because everything is to sell” (line 414). She displays deliberately constructed behavior as a form of display for listeners so that they can both enjoy and learn from her experience. There are various situations in which the Wife of Bath relied on certain artificial appearances and fabrications to get what she wanted out of her marriage. Many of her duties as a wife are achievable due to her degree of authority beyond the average for a married woman. For example, although it is a counterintuitive idea, the woman used her ability to lie when her fourth husband cheated on her and she hoped to make him believe that she was doing the same. This concept is inherently ironic and while it may seem pointless and unnecessarily false with no worthwhile end, it has essentially allowed her to remain on top or equal in the power struggle of their marriage. In the same vein, she implemented other artificial means for other ends which she described in the prologue. For example, to make Jankyn believe that she loved him, when she did not love him at the time she told him that he had become in love with him, which she explains by saying: "I 'forbidden, he enchanted me: my lady taught me this soutiltee' (lines 575-76). The woman apparently has no reservations about using these forms of artifice, which can be attributed to the fact that for a woman to have power and authority in such a powerless time for women, she has to do things that are not desirable. and who degrade themselves or others. When her fourth husband dies, Bath's wife describes how she "weeps algate and makes sory cheers, as wyves mock, for that is the custom" (lines 588-89). Her other instances of deliberate and calculated misbehavior were generally aimed at satisfying her mind or state of mind, or ensuring that a situation would turn out positively for herself, and were unaware of the perception of outsiders . In this situation, her decision to pretend to cry a lot when she did not feel great sadness is perhaps relative to her more socially vulnerable position as a widow rather than as a married woman. In order to ensure that her future prospects turned out as she had planned, it seems she had to play the role of a wronged widow. Being comfortably situated in a marriage, The Wife of Bath makes it clear that her artificial behaviors were guarded. for necessary occasions and that most of his behavior was based on his real impulses and desires. The Wife of Bath openly shares this with others, saying, “I never loved without any discretion, but I always followed my appetite” (lines 622-23). Already somewhat rare at the time and in the conditions of marriage at the time, her own agency and control in the marriage was particularly evident through the juxtaposition of Jaynkin's volatile and aggressive behavior that she describes and with his casual frankness. She refuses to face his tendencies that devalue, criticize and generalize her as a wife, and as a result, she rebelled against his control over her by slapping him and tearing out the pages of the book. book. She tells the listeners, by way of explanation: “Of his proverbs and his old saw, Ne je wolde nat d'hymn corrected be” (lines 661-62). In an unexpected turn of events, this leads him to tell him "My owene trewe wyf, do what you mean with everything.