The Wife Of Bath's Tale Feminist Essay

In the Fourteenth Century, women were not valued near as much as men were. Not much respect was given to women and girls. Men often considered them to be weak, unintelligent, and unable to do anything. Women often had controlled lifestyle and had inadequate freedom. Living under the unfair condition, women’s rights were encroached. Thus, there was a group of people — feminists — stepping forward. Feminists are those who advocate of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the genders. In the Fourteenth Century, most of the feminists showed the idea of feminism via literature. Based on the Wife of Bath’s Tale, which is one of the stories in the “Canterbury Tales” written by the famous English poet, Geoffrey Chaucer, Chaucer can be regarded
In the Wife of Bath’s Tale, there is a knight that is on the journey of finding the answer of what women most desire. The knight has searched the answer, asked many others, and tried to solve this problem for a whole year but still be unable to solve it. Finally, as the knight rides near a forest, he meets the old women; the knight explains his predicament and asks the old women for help. The old women said, “Give me your hand, and swear to do whatever I shall next require of you — if so to do should lie within your might — and you shall know the answer before night.” This sentence is quite meaningful and showed how intelligent the old women is. In the later part of the story, the old women asks the knight to marry her. Owing to the knight’s predicament, the knight has no alternative but to consent to swear to the old women. It can be deduced that the old women takes advantage of the knight’s predicament to force the knight to marry her. Also, as the knight finishes his answer, the old women comes to the front, tells the queen that she is the one who helps the knight, and requires the knight to carry out his promise in front of public. These two events show how the characteristic of the old women differs from the characteristic of the traditional women; the old women is wise and dare to express her opinion in front of public while traditional women are often considered unintelligent and
In the Wife of Bath’s Tale, the knight deflowers a maiden one day and is going to have an execution by decapitation. The queen and other ladies intercede on his behalf and ask the king to give the knight one chance to save his own life. The queen said that if the knight can discover that women most desire within one year and return to report his findings back to the court. The knight travels around the country to search for the answer. As the knight asks people he meets on the journey, he obtains many different answers. Some say that women wanted wealth and treasure. Some say honor. Some say gorgeous clothes. Some say fun in bed. Some say to remarry. Some say men’s flattery. Some say freedom to whatever women want to do. Generally, those answers can be classified as pursuing of material wants or women’s right. However, according to the old women, the correct answer of what women most desire should be the complete sovereignty over their husband. “A woman wants the self-same sovereignty over her husband as over her lover, and master him; he must not be above her.” A complete sovereignty gives women supreme power above all. This should be why sovereignty is the answer of what women most desire. In the Fourteenth Century, the time when women did not have adequate rights, this kind of opinion, that sovereignty is what women most desire, can certainly to be considered as the idea of