So I absolutely love the "Wife of Bath's Tale"!!! I honestly think she's the best character in the book! However, I loved how the knight went on a quest to answer the question "what is it that women most desire?" This was very interesting because it was as if the Wife of Bath placed a male in a women's shoes. I say this because the knight went on a quest to answer this question, and he received many different answers. It was very hard for him to interpret what it was that women most desired. I believe the Wife of Bath wanted men to realize women want all of these things: love, affection, honestly, adornment, jolliness, freedom, and more that is why she told this tale. In my opinion, this tale was made for men to understand what they must do for their significant others. Women do not want to be controlled by men, they would like to have control over themselves. However, Wife of Bath's Tale made me realize that these things were very hard for women to have. According to Beowulf, women did not have a name they were simply just called "daughter". So it made me think, why exactly would men care about what these women "desire" On the other hand, Chaucer must feel that women are somewhat important because he took the time out to put the "Wife of Bath's Tale" in Canterbury Tales.
Next, I am very curious to find out if women ever received these things (love, adornment, pleasure, freedom, etc.) in the medieval time period, because some women don't even receive these things in the world today. If you think about it, women still want love, adornment, jolliness, and honesty. I find this really weird that this took place in the medieval time period and it is now 2013! There is still some type of comparison that can be made!
I like to think that there were beneficial/mutual relationships back then, and I'm sure that there was, but at the same time, I can't help but assume that Chaucer was putting on his rose-tinted glasses for The Wife of Bath in general. Either that, or he was just intending to be parodic.
ReplyDeleteI loved her prologue a lot more than the tale itself. However, I do see what you mean about the tale trying to make men see what women want most. I think the fact that no woman told the knight the same thing proves not only that all women are different, but that there are a number of things they want. It is hard to prove what the number one thing women want is because people want different things. To me, the point of his quest was to show that women are people with their own thoughts and feelings, not objects you can do whatever you want with.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about how a lot of human desires back then mirror the desires that humans have today. It's pretty indisputable that women were treated like crap back in the medieval times, compared to how women are treated today, not to say that women couldn't be treated better these days... I think that Chaucer was very ahead of his time in that he was able to satirize the way women were treated back then. And the Wife of Bath prologue and tale are proof of this.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about how a lot of human desires back then mirror the desires that humans have today. It's pretty indisputable that women were treated like crap back in the medieval times, compared to how women are treated today, not to say that women couldn't be treated better these days... I think that Chaucer was very ahead of his time in that he was able to satirize the way women were treated back then. And the Wife of Bath prologue and tale are proof of this.
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