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Wife of Bath Assignment

The document summarizes the prologue and tale of the Wife of Bath from Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. It describes the Wife of Bath's experiences with her five husbands and how she asserted dominance over them. It also summarizes the tale she tells of a knight who must determine what women truly want from men in order to save his life. The tale depicts an old hag transforming into a beautiful woman after the knight agrees to give her sovereignty in their marriage. The document concludes there are similarities between the Wife of Bath's character as described in the prologue and that of the old hag in the tale, particularly regarding their beliefs about the importance of female sovereignty in marriage.

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Fatima Azhar
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464 views4 pages

Wife of Bath Assignment

The document summarizes the prologue and tale of the Wife of Bath from Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. It describes the Wife of Bath's experiences with her five husbands and how she asserted dominance over them. It also summarizes the tale she tells of a knight who must determine what women truly want from men in order to save his life. The tale depicts an old hag transforming into a beautiful woman after the knight agrees to give her sovereignty in their marriage. The document concludes there are similarities between the Wife of Bath's character as described in the prologue and that of the old hag in the tale, particularly regarding their beliefs about the importance of female sovereignty in marriage.

Uploaded by

Fatima Azhar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Poetry Assignment

The Canterbury tales by Geoffrey Chaucer


Character: Wife of bath
Group members:
Aliza Amin jan 1825116007
Fatima Azher 1825116035
Hina Akber 1825116053
Javeria Masood 1825116071
Quratulain 1825116093
BS 3 ( semester 5)
Submitted to: Ms. Muqaddas javed
Date of submission: 02/11/2020
Summary of the prologue and tale of the wife of bath:
Prologue: There was a good wife of bath. She was unfortunately a little deaf. She
was skillful in cloth making. She is one of the immortal and original characters of
the Canterbury tales. The wife of bath would not hold with any other woman
preceding her in giving money to the collection box in church. It would make her
angry. Her dressing was finest. She was wearing a kerchiefs of finest texture. Her
shoes were soft and new. she was a respectable woman all her life. Her face was
bold and fair and red in complexion. She was quite familiar with travelling. She
had been thrice to Jerusalem. She also had been at Rome and at bologne, at the
shrine of st. James in galicia, and at cologne. She was (gat-toothed) gap toothed.
She was comfortably sitting upon an ambling horse, wearing a fair wimple, a hat
and petticoat around her buttocks. She was putting on a pair of large spurs on her
feet. She was happy and chattering with her companions. She was aware of the
remedies of love as she was experienced in that art.
Tale: The wife of bath begins her tale by sharing her experiences and information
about life. She says that she always follows the rule of experience rather than
authority. She had 5 church husbands. She also justifies her several marriages by
giving biblical referneces. According to her God commands us to grow fruitful and
multiply. In order to defend her position she also says st. Paul’s admonishment
that it is better to marry than to burn. Genitals in her opinion are made for
pleasure. She also challenges everyone who says that God commands virginity.
She calls it “weakness". Then she progresses her tale by explaining her
relationship with her five husbands and tell us how she took control (sovereignty)
over her husbands. According to her statement the three of her husbands were
good two were bad. At the funeral of her fourth husband she kept her eyes on a
Clerk jankyn whom she admired the most and got married to him after one
month. Though she was twice his age. He was fond of reading. Once he was
reading about unfaithful , deceitful women and prostitutes from the story of Eve
and she got furious. At this they started quarreling and whenever he began to hit
her she pretends to be dead and in that way she got sovereignty over her fifth
husband. From that day until his death, she became a good faithful wife. Then
there is an account of the knight and an old hag. A knight from king Arthurs courts
rapes a maiden. Arthur ordered to behead him but then his wife intervened and
gives him an intellectual quest. She asked him to find out women desire from
men. He tried hard to find the answer but he couldn’t because every woman he
met told him a differnt answer. After years he was summoned to the court on the
day of his judgment. On his way he saw a group of maidens but When he
approached them they disappeared and only an old woman left. He tells her
about the quest. She promised to help him but in return he would have to do
whatever she demands. He agreed. In court he tells the answer that is women
most desire sovereignty over their husbands. The answer was right. The old
woman then demanded to marry him. The knight had to agree on this. But he was
very upset with that old lady and payed no attention to her. When she inquires
him he confesses that her old, ugliness and lack of energy are repulsive to him.
She doesn’t take offense at insult. And tells him that real gentlilty is not a matter
of appearance but virtue. He offers the knight a choice that either he can have an
ugly but loyal and faithful wife or have a young maiden but deceitful and
unfaithful wife. He replies that he would trust her judgment and ask her to do
whatever she thinks is best. His answer gives the women what she desire the
most. The sovereignty over her husband. She become beautiful and good. Both
lead a happy married life and woman become obedient to her husband.

Similarities between the character of wife in prologue and tale:


We can observe there is relation between the description of the character of bath
in “prologue to Canterbury Tale” and the tale told by her, here is the detail,
The wife of Bath, Dame Alice, is dominant over all 5 of her husbands and though
she struggles along with her 5th husband to achieve the whip hand within the
wedding, Dame Alice nevertheless in the end accomplishes her initial intention.
Dame Alice appears to be solely genuinely happy once she has mastery over her
husbands. They have to willingly give this power, consciously or unconsciously, as
a result of while not their consent she contains a battle on her hands, each
difficult the opposite for final superiority within the relationship. The recent hag,
likewise, gains control over her husband once the knight places her within the
governing position and once more as seen within the wife of Bath’s introduction,
the knight should consent to relinquish up this power so as for the recent hag to
amass it, for if he had not given her management of the partnership, each would
have continuing sadly.

The Wife of Bath describes herself as old and lethargic,


“But age, allas, that al wol envenime, Hath me biraft my beautee and my pith. ”
(Chaucer: line 481-482).

Although the physical description of Dame Alice is not as unpleasant as the


portrait of the old woman, there is notable mimicry between the two women. The
old woman is described by the knight as,

“A fouler wight ther may no man devise. ” (Chaucer: line 1005), the old woman
also quotes him later as saying she was “foul and old” (Chaucer: line 1219).

Due to the similarities of the women one could successfully argue that The Wife
of Bath, sees herself somewhere in the old hags character, as becoming the old
hag, yet hoping to transform into the young and beautiful maiden.

Other common thing is the belief of living a blissful life once the husband’s give
the mastery and sovereignty to their wives which is believed by both the
characters.
In the general prologue we notice that lady bath is represented as a strong and
vivacious character who lives according to her own experience and, same is the
character of old hag who is vivacious and well experienced. It was that
experienced base answer that saved knight’s life.
Conclusion
Consequently, these claims facilitate support the notion that the wife of Bath’s
Tale is designed to echo her life, or a minimum of what she delineate of it in her
prologue. The foremost compelling fact overall was the matching personalities
and also the lessons learnt by her husband, Jankyn and also the knight. Though
The wife of Bath sometimes contradicts herself, primarily she comprehends the
link amongst her in prologue and tale, one may even read the contradictions as
the way she had hoped her life would be.

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