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| The Wife of Bath from Pasolini's film, The Canterbury Tales |
For Monday: The Wife of Bath's Prologue
Answer TWO of the following...
1. Do you feel
Chaucer is sympathetic toward the Wife of Bath, or is he making fun of her
sinfulness and sensuality? How can we
tell from the Prologue? Support your
reading from a specific passage in the Prologue.
2. Why did the
Wife of Bath love her Fifth Husband the most, despite, as she claims, “I pray
God keep and save his soul from hell—And yet he was to me the worst of
all?” What does this say about her
philosophy of love and marriage?
3. How might The
Wife of Bath’s tale also be a response to “The Miller’s Tale,” and
specifically, his depiction of Alison?
Why might she object in general to the way women are portrayed in
literature and the Scriptures? Consider
the line, “Who drew the picture of the lion?
Who?” (p.236—my edition)
4. The Wife of
Bath spends much of her Prologue defending lifestyle, and does this through her
own interpretation of the Scriptures (a pretty bold act for a woman of this
time who is not in religious
orders). How does she interpret the
Bible in her own defense, and how are some of the other pilgrims—probably the
Friar, the Summoner, etc.—getting it wrong?
Kelsey Tiger
ReplyDelete1. I think Chaucer is making fun of her sinfulness and sensuality. “To church they bore my husband in the morning followed by the neighbours, all in mourning, and one among them was the scholar Jankin. So help me God, when I saw him go past, oh what fine clean pair of legs and feet thought I-and so to him I lost my heart.” She is burying her current husband and should be in mourning, yet she found her next husband. There is a little humor in that in the way her feelings are sensual, not about love. She even said right before this passage that “she wept for him as all wives must, because it’s customary.” She didn’t weep for him because he, her husband, was dead; she did because that’s apparently what wives are “supposed to do”.
2. Although the Wife of Baths Fifth Husband punched her upon her head with his fist, I think she loved him the most because after they made up he basically gave her all the control. He tells her, “My own true faithful wife, do as you please from now on, all your life”. I think she liked having the upper hand and having power over men. She also liked being able to do as she pleases. So although to her he was the worst of all, he gave her what she wanted and that is having the reins over him and having her freedom. I think this says that to her marriage is not necessarily about love, but being able to figure out a way to get what you want and being able to be in charge.
1.I think Chaucer was making a mockery of The Wife of Bath and her lifestyle. Though it would be common for someone from the church to quote scripture in their tales, it seemed out of place for her to. I feel like Chaucer may have been showing a parallel between The Wife of Bath and other Pilgrims from the corrupt church. Maybe that they both misinterpreted the bible, in an unscholarly way? On page 158 she says, “We love no man who watches carefully/ Our coming and going; we want liberty.” Chaucer seems to be insinuating that she had something to hide, that she was not even loyal when married.
ReplyDelete4.In her prologue the Wife of Bath says, "Those bitter words that Jesus, God and Man,/ Spoke in reproof to the Samaritan/Beside a well--"Thou hast had", said he,/ "five husbands, and he whom now thous has/ Is not thy husband." He said that of course,/ But what he meant by it I cannot say. (150)." She goes on to question why the fifth man wasn't the lawful spouse of the Samaritan. And "How many lawful husbands could she have?" She says the only thing she knows for sure is God has told us to increase and multiply. She was obviously interpreting the bible in a way that made it stand as defense to her lifestyle. After her interpretation of the sexual reproductive organs, and her intents of using them "night and day" on pg 154, the Pardoner responds by saying he no longer wants to marry, ever. But she tells him that she is quite the expert in the field of marriage and after her story he may decide to drink from a different cup.
Anna Talkington
ReplyDelete1. I think that Chaucer defends her. I feel that he is mocking chastity as bit and views it the way he portrays the wife viewing it. He says, “Had virginity been the Lord’s command, Marriage would at the same time be condemned. And surely, if no seed were ever sown, from what, then, could virginity be grown?” (151). This passage seems to suggest that if everyone person were chaste that the human race could never grow and therefore it shouldn’t be for everyone. Also, that it is natural to be married and reproduce. The prologue in general sets the tone that prudishness is silly.
2. Later, she says in regards to her fifth husband and the nature of women, “if there is a thing we can’t get easily, that’s what we are bound to clamor for all day” (163). She tells us that her husband beats her, but that she wants his love all that much more because it is hard to obtain. I feel like this suggests that she views love and marriage as sort of a game. Because of her multiple marriages, lovers, and the tactics she employs that her mother taught her, it makes it seem like she views it as a sport of sorts.
Ashley Bean
ReplyDelete1. Honestly, I can't decide. I think he goes back and forth. Most of the prologue, she talks about how awful women are. But Chaucer almost portrays her as smart. In the man-powered world he lives in, maybe he thinks women are really pulling the strings? I kind of think he admires and sympathizes with how she deals with her problems, while still poking fun at her, like when she defends her lifestyle in the beginning. I think that was where Chaucer was poking the most fun. Then when she ended up having her way through abuse, I think it is admiration and sympathy.
2. This was the first husband she chose for something other than money. Also, she constantly had to fight for his love, "If there's a thing we can't get easily,/ That's what we're bound to clamor for all day" (p. 163). With the others, she just manipulated them into getting their money. This husband was younger, and tried to tell her what to do. In the end, she had her way and was happy.
Elyse Marquardt
ReplyDeleteQuestion 1: I think that Chaucer is mocking the Wife of Bath in every single sentence he has her say. She sounds very wise and knowledgeable about the subject of love, but when looked at more closely it is really only the subject of lust. This woman seems to have never been in true love at all, where two people honor each other. She disgraces herself by giving her body to every man she is attracted to, and therefore has no real respect, neither from others nor from herself. She is bragging about her exploits; if she can't gain approval, she wants the next best thing - awe. She is shoving her daring deeds into our faces, saying "I am this terrible and there's nothing you can do about it." The entire passage from pages 156-159 illustrates this point, in which she spends an inordinate amount of time reciting all the taunts with which she liked to torment her husbands.
Question 2: I haven't read 50 Shades of Grey, but from what I've heard of it, I believe the Wife of Bath has the same feelings toward her fifth husband that the main character has toward her "lover" in 50 Shades. The Wife seems to be afflicted by Stockholm Syndrome, where she is mistreated by her partner and is made emotionally captive to him by this very same abuse. This says a great deal about her philosophy of marriage - marriage is simply a means by which two people are brought together to make sexual satisfaction more convenient and acceptable. If her husband happens to be mysterious and slightly abusive, all the more exciting then.
1.Chaucer constructs a blurred line as to what is merely satire for him, and what he's sympathetic towards. He does a great job at creating distance between himself and the tales. For the most part he writes in jest about the Wife of Bath. Her misunderstanding and twisting of scripture is so outrageous you can find humor in it. "All I know for sure is, God has plainly Bidden us to increase and multiply - A noble text, and one I understand!" Speaking in concerns to her husbands she says, "Here's to the sixth, whenever he turns up. The one passage that sparked sympathy with me dealt with her fifth husband hitting her so hard on one side of the head she went deaf in that ear. All though he dealt with this domestic abuse in a satirical sense this gave a landscape to the unhealthy environment she was engulfed in. For those who have seen the dire outcomes of domestic abuse we felt for the Wife of Bath.
ReplyDelete3. She sees literature as very skewed lacking the balance of a women's perspective. The Miller's Tale would sound very different from a women's vantage point. After all, the lady was sexually assaulted at the beginning of The Miller's tale.
Deryk Ronk
ReplyDelete1.) I believe that Chaucer is making fun of the Wife of Bath. She has just lost her husband and she is already finding other men. I believe that he is using her to interpret, in some way, the cold heartedness of women. Not only doe she openly discuss being very sexual, she tries to justify it all, sometimes biblically.
2.) The fifth husband is her favorite because she married him for something other than money. She says that "if there is a thing we can't get easily, that is the thing we clamor for all day", meaning he is playing hard to get. I believe that he is exactly how she used to be, so she is the one falling in love and getting used.
- Rocky Moore
ReplyDelete1) I think Chaucer is definitely sympathetic in his attempt to create The Wife of Bath, though he cant help but put a few things in there to poke fun of her as well, like having five husbands. It is just his style to poke fun in this story. Considering the Prologue is longer than her actual tale then something is to be said that this probably is much more significant to the point that Chaucer is attempting to make. This reminds me of something a feminist would write especially if you were to look at some stuff written during the time when women wanted the right to vote. They didn't have a say during the medieval times, which is kind of ironic because men still think it is this way nowadays. Another side note to this prologue is the Renaissance was on the horizon and a transformation was on the rise around the corner where people were to think for themselves and not do things according to the Church or the past just because tradition said to. People were starting to have a voice and I think Chaucer is really hoping that people see this when he is writing. It basically paved the way for how most of the people in this generation think today, I would hope.
3) Again, in literature and the scripture for the most part condemn women and don't give them any credit. The Miller's tale and depiction of Alison make it seem that she is an awful person and that all women are like her and that we should just make fun of them all. Obviously if one can think for themselves they would know this isn't true and that all women cannot be the same. If there aren't many women writing and getting their points of view out then no one would really be able to understand this. I think this was Chaucer's attempt to get the women's voice out in the public and let people know that men are not perfect as well. Also, since everyone is just responding to one another through their attempt of telling a tale I think the Wife of Bath is simply sticking her middle finger up at The Miller and every other man that thinks this way and also an attempt to help out men who want to know what it is that women want. I think the whole line about the Lion is simply, whoever writes the Tale can spin it whichever way they choose and the one who doesn't is basically out of luck with the draw.
2. I think she loves him the most of all because she finally got the freedom she wanted in a marriage. He was abusive to her, but I don’t think she really believes marriage is necessarily about love. It’s about a contract to give each other what you want and nothing else. She uses lies and tears and anything else she can use to get what she wants which is freedom. She wants to be the one in control or at least an equal to the man.
ReplyDelete4. I think that she is making the point that she is knowledgeable and she too can use scriptures to defend her acts. Most women didn’t have access to books or read the bible so it was up to men in the way that they wanted to interpret things. She was showing them that she had read the bible and she was interpreting scriptures in a different way than they had. Men believed it wasn’t wrong for them to remarry and it was understood that they wouldn’t be labeled as a “slut”. But for a woman to act in the same way was wrong. She was simply asking the question, “Why should woman be any different than men?” That’s why she brings up the point that it never directly says a specific number in the bible for how many times you should marry.
Shelby Pletcher
ReplyDelete2) I think her fifth husband may give her a sense of freedom and maybe, it's as if he beat her because he saw what a force she was to be reckoned with. I don't know about anybody else, but I got the sense that this husband had respect for her deep down, and despite all of his disgusting abuse, she saw this and that's why he may have been her favorite. Also, I definitely think she found him to be an exhilarating partner in and outside of the bedroom.
4) The wife of bath uses multiple scriptural references to defend her actions, but the ones that stuck out the most to me is King Soloman's many wives, which we discussed in class today, as well as her theory that God made the human instruments not only for pro-creation, but also for "relief and ease." I think much of her argument here though was aimed towards being seen as an intellectual equal in a male-dominated culture. In her eyes, if the Friar can have multiple sexual partners, then why can't she?
Devin Martinez
ReplyDelete1.) While reading the Prologue of the Wife of Bath, I felt like Chaucer was giving her a stage on which to spread her message. He is sympathetic and supportive to the perspective of women and lists the complaints of women through the voice of the Wife of Bath. Chaucer allows to fully expose herself giving her character ethos by admitting to her flaws however she is able to defend herself using scripture comparable to the way men excuse their own lewd behavior.
4.) In her Prologue the Wife of Bath spends much time defending her actions by citing scripture from the Bible. I took this as a cynical approach to the potential thoughts of the Friar and the Summoner and that she was trying to point out the hypocrisy regarding the church's stance on women's rights. She puts the very members of the clergy in the spotlight by comparing the actions of men to her own. She is a very empowered woman and has no problem calling these people out on their judgmental opinions.