The Wife of Bath :: essays papers

The wife of vatThe Wife of BathAn Illusion of RealityWhen one thinks of marriage, the most universalideal is equality ofcontrol among man and woman. Chaucer incorporates deuce opposingviewpoints on marriage in The Canterbury Tales. The Wife ofBaths tale, in which she says that one spouse, preferablythe wife, must(prenominal) have mastery over the other. On the otherhand, The Franklins tale disapproves of the Wife of Bathsphilosophy by saying that equality and trust are indwellingin h superannuateding a marriage together as explicit here.... And to enhance the bliss ofboth of their lives. He freely gave his expect as a knightthat he would never darken her enchant by exercising hisauthority against her will or showing jealousy but would obeyher in all with simple trust as any lover of a lady must...(427)Now, the question is, Can the normal readerfind the Wife of Batha trustworthy person. David Parker, a literary critic,believes that The Wife of Bath Should not be fullytruste d, callable to the contradictory things she said about herrelationships with her five preserves in her prologue. Withthe first triple husbands, the Wife was happy because she wasmarried to wealthy men, but was unhappy because they were oldand could not fulfill her sexual desires. On the other hand,with her last two husbands, the Wife got her sexual desiresfulfilled, but theres a huge question ticktock about her masteryof her younger husbands. Her relationship with her fifth, andlast husband, is a bloom example of this contradiction. WhenJohn, her fifth husband, hit her it was apparent to thereader, and to me, that she wasnt in the very gladmarriage as seen here...Then like a maddened lion,with a yell he started up and smote me on the head and downI fell upon the floor for dead. And when he saw howmotionless I rate he was aghast and would have flown away, butin the end, I started culmination to....(297)Here, its evident to me that the Wife wasvery submissive in thismarriage a nd that her husband is the one who shows themastery. What didnt surprise me at the end of her prologuewas the fact that everything was sweet and flushed and that