Wife Of Bath's House Analysis

A wife leaving her husband is not that big of a deal nowadays, but in the past it was unheard of. Women had no rights and were not able to fend for themselves. Society had made it so that women had to rely on a man for everything. This is how Nora Helmer, the main character in Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House, found her life to be. She always had to ask her husband for money, since she could not get a job to make her own. The truth was, though, she had gone behind her husband’s back and purchased a loan, which she was desperately trying to pay back. This was all for her husband’s sake. Nora was living in her own little world perceiving things the way she wanted to; when in reality things were much different. Nora finally realizes this and …show more content…
In “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” a knight has raped a young woman and is going to be sentenced to death when the queen intervenes and says that if the knight can find out what women truly want within a year and a day his life will be spared. So the knight sets out on his journey, but after a year goes by he has had no luck at finding the answer to the queen’s question. On his journey back on his final day he sees a witch in a the forest and she tells the knight she has the answer to the question. So he returns to the castle and tells the queen that what women truly seek is “‘A woman wants the selfsane sovereignty over her husband as over her lover, and master him; he must not be above her.’” (page 133). Chaucer wrote these words and it sets the thought that a woman should be able to be independent just like her husband is; they should be equal. This is how Nora and Torvald’s marriage should have been like; equal. Instead Nora is beneath her husband. Torvald is always calling her silly degrading names. At the beginning of the play Nora comes back from buying Christmas presents and Torvald lectures her about spending too …show more content…
He wrote many works, one being “The Education of Women.” In this essay he discusses women’s education and how if they were more educated they would listen to men more. He goes to saying that men should educate women, as if women do not want to be educated. “I would have men take women for companions, and educate them to be fit for it.”(page 375) During the time period though it was looked down on if a woman had an education. So, even if Defoe is writing that women should be educated it doesn’t mean people are going to do as he says. Women were expected to stay home, take care of children, do sewing and cooking; and that was what was expected of Nora. She wasn’t supposed to have a job and make money. Nora was supposed to stay at home and listen to what her husband told her to do; but that isn’t what Nora did. She had taken a loan and was working to pay it off; all without her husband know. So, even though Defoe says it’s the men who should make women learn, it really should be women doing as they please and getting an education. Sadly though, since Nora did not get a proper education about the world she ran into trouble. That trouble being Krogstad, the man she received the loan from. During his conversation with Nora, Krogstad says “Mrs.Helmer, obviously you haven’t the vaguest idea of what you’ve involved yourself in.” (page 67) Nora had forged her father’s signature on the paper and did not know the consequences of her