The Wife Of Bath's Tale Essay

The class discussion that impacted my understanding of the reading the most was when we reviewed “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” from Canterbury Tales. After reading the tale, I settled on the idea that the knight had learned his lesson and deserved his happy ending with the beautiful young woman, despite his earlier transgressions. Once the class started debating whether or not the knight had learned his lesson or simply just told the old hag what she wanted to hear, I realized the knight not only didn’t understand his revelation at the court that women wanted to be treated as equals, but also represents a large portion of society during this era that valued women for their nobility status, wealth, and physical appearance. The old hag turning into a beautiful women at the end makes me believe that the teller of this tale doesn’t understand the true lesson from the story, because of his plea that Jesus Christ should make all wives “young and fresh.” I value this class discussion because it provoked me to challenge my understanding of the …show more content…
I claimed that by using this word, Beowulf was implying that Hrothgar’s emotional response to the death of his friend was an ineffective way to respond death and that the only vengeance for a true warrior would be to fight back in his honor. This comment led to a larger discussion about the fundamental values of warrior culture and the idea that life is a race to glory. Also during this discussion I added that Beowulf’s race to glory explains why he didn’t think it was appropriate to mourn a loss of a comrade in the same way that King Hrothgar did. I think my contributions during this discussion helped the class better understand the warrior culture that is a constant theme in this Old English epic