The Knight's Tale Women Analysis

The role of women in society is, to this day, ever changing in England. Women have made much progress, gaining rights and freedoms, however, it has not been an easy journey. As seen in Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath Prologue”, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”, as well as “The Knight’s Tale”, the views of women in fourteenth century England are very poor. Chaucer believes that women are manipulative, deceitful, and unworthy of basic freedoms. Geoffrey Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales uses characterization of women to develop the theme that women are dangerous in society, in an attempt to show the societal views of women in fourteenth century England. Throughout “The Wife of Bath Prologue”, Chaucer creates an image of the Wife of Bath, portraying that she is a slut who is also very deceiving and manipulative. Chaucer uses this dangerous characterization to imply throughout this prologue that this is how all women of the time act, claiming that women “destroy” their husbands (Chaucer). This develops Chaucer’s theme of the danger of women by stereotyping women as a whole category, instead of on an individual level, and creating the view that all women only possess these dangerous characteristics. Because of these views, women are seen as dangerous in society during this time. In “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” the stereotype of women is no …show more content…
As seen in all of the prologues and tales, women of this time period do not have equal rights with men and gender roles are also very prevalent. Today, women have overcome many of these stereotypes, and are no longer seen as insignificant. However, feminism and gender roles are still highly debated topics in many parts of the world, including England. In conclusion, Chaucer uses the negative characterization of women as a whole, to show the insignificance of women in society throughout The Canterbury