Analysis Of The Wife Of Bath's Tale By Geoffrey Chaucer

In the poem The Wife of Bath’s Tale from the Canterbury tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, the wife satirizes marriage and women. She’s “ugly, elderly, and poor,” however she has been married five times and is looking for her sixth husband. She uses her sexuality to gain control over her men since women don’t hold power otherwise. She uses her story to express the abusive nature of men and also the romantic. “Gentility, you then should realize, is not akin to things like property; for people act with much variety, not like the fire that always is the same. God knows that men may often find, for shame, a lord’s son who’s involved in villainy…” The old character in the story is a horrid looking old lady but transforms into a beautiful women after she gives her husband a choice of leaving her or staying for real love and loyalty and once again he is persuaded with her sexuality. She’s tells a story of a knight who rapes a young maiden as she’s walking near a river. He’s then brought to the kings’ court and is ordered to be beheaded for his punishment on the behalf of his actions but Queen Guinevere decides to take a different approach. A knight is supposed to have that this one went against such as courage, honor, courtesy, justice, and willing to help the weak, …show more content…
When the knight was being sentenced he had a court filled of women which left them in charge of his future giving women power. They took full advantage and spared his life to learn an important life lesson. “’You stand, for such is the position still, in no certain of your life,’ said she, ‘Yet you shall live if you can answer me: What is the thing that women most desire? Beware the axe and I say as I require.’” The queen spoke as she had the knights’ life in her hand. He then on his knees gives in to the queen and the other women standing behind her and agrees to go on this quest to search for an