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According to Wikipedia, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” (Middle English: “the Tale of the Wyf of Bathe”) is among the best-known of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. It provides insight into the role of women in the Late Middle Ages and was probably of interest to Chaucer himself, for the character is one of his most developed ones, with her Prologue twice as long as her Tale. He also goes so far as to describe two sets of clothing for her in his General Prologue. She holds her own among the bickering pilgrims, and evidence in the manuscripts suggests that although she was first assigned a different, plainer tale—perhaps the one told by the Shipman—she received her present tale as her significance increased. She calls herself both Alyson and Alys in the prologue, but to confuse matters these are also the names of her 'gossib' (a close friend or gossip), whom she mentions several times, as well as many female characters throughout The Canterbury Tales.

Theme: Erotic Violence and Erotic Power

One theme Chaucer explores are the ethics on the limits and usage of erotic violence and erotic power (Desmond,11). Chaucer explores how erotic violence and erotic power correspond with one another through the actions of the Wife of Bath’s character. The Wife who is also the narrator depicts her dominating persona over her husband by stating: “myself have been the whippe” (13). The Wife of Bath narrates that she herself has been in sexual terms “the whip” to her husband. This illustrates to readers an image of sexual male submission and female domination (Desmond, 13). Chaucer’s description of the wife using her body as a whip evokes erotic power because it refers to sexual domination and control over a person. In addition, Chaucer’s specific usage of the word choice “ whip” imposes thoughts of erotic violence and humiliation and also has an equestrian metaphoric meaning. Whips are used to some violent extent on horses to instill obedience and disciple. Chaucer’s word choice of “whip” symbolizes erotic violence because the Wife’s body is enforcing sexual obedience onto her husband as metaphorically a whip would instill obedience and disciple onto a horse (Desmond, 15). Furthermore, the Wife of Bath continues to describe the negotiations between her and husband five by stating: “ He yaf me al the bridel in myn hond” (13). The Wife of Bath explains how husband five permitted all his sexual rights into her hand. Chaucer’s again gives evidence of the husband’s submissiveness and the Wife’s sexual dominance (Desmond,15).

Theme: Rhetoric of Rape

Rape is one of the more evident themes depicted in “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” and is such an influential descriptor that signifies the focal point of the story. In the tale, the Knight becomes overly exerted with sexual excitement that pushes him to rape the maiden as described in Chaucer’s scene of the Wife of Bath’s Tale: And happed that, allone as she was borne, He saugh a mayde walkynge hym biforn, Of whiche mayde anon, maugree hir heed, By verray force, he rafte hire maydenhed. (891-894)

Edwards defines rape or raptus as “a violent act against a particular woman and an act that dramatizes the instability and multiplicity of the very body it harms” (16). Chaucer depicts how the knight “dramatizes the instability and multiplicity of the very body it harms” by emphasizing how the knight deprives the maiden of any power by taking her maidenhead, which was what women had to leverage on the marriage market. Because this scene is one of Chaucer’s distinctive contributions to the loathly lady narrative, the rape scene is often described as a “careful narrative choice that reflects the interests of women’s experience, feminine desire, and “maistrie” elaborated in the “Wife of Bath’s Tale” (Edwards1).

In the medieval legal context as it relates to the Tale, the statute, commonly known as the Statute of Rape, “exploits the indignation that the language of rape incites to punish women’s self-chose autonomous marriage decisions and protect familial interests in women’s marriage value” (Edwards, 2). This can be observed in the scene when the “motivation of the Queen’s mercy to the knight and the logic of the marital reward the rapist ultimately receives“ is demonstrated in the story (Edwards, 2). In medieval times, rape was not considered rape because legal definitions described rape as “seduction”, which also accounted as female consent in late medieval culture rather than unlawful acts of sexual violence and exploitation (Edwards, 2). The Wife of Bath’s Tale initial representation of sexual brutality indicates the relevance of fourteenth-century understandings of rape. To a fourteenth-century audience, the maiden’s lack of consent by design indicates her permission to rape (Edwards, 14). In addition, the Tale manages to cite contradictory possibilities simultaneously: the knight’s violation of the maiden is a forcible act against her will that irrevocably harms her, and at the same time, it may suggest the possibility of her consent, either because she arranged it or because the statute, formally identifies the act as the sign of her consent (Edwards,14).

Theme: Politics of Gender differences

Gender difference during late medieval times was another prominent theme depicted in The Wife of Bath’s Tale. In reference to the knight raping the maiden, Edwards emphasizes that: the knight’s declaration in court about what women want reproduces the logic of sexual violence rather than remedying it; his words become the sign of her desires and, in so doing, they cut off the multiplicity of those desires. While this substitution serves as a reminder of masculine privilege in law and love, it also demonstrates that his act can never be simply a mark of his mastery over her. It is also evidence — and here we can see the instructive parallel between the knight’s crime and his answer to the ladies of the court — that her desires exceed any single expression of them. (Edwards 17) This scene illustrates both masculine aggression and feminine suffering; making it possible to see the pervasive social inequalities linked to gender differences (Edwards, 2). The representation of rape in the story symbolizes the relevance of power dynamics between gender disparity and denotes the undermining of female worth.

Works Cited

Chaucer, Geoffery. The Canterbury Tales. Ed. and Trans. Gerard, NeCastro. University of Maine at Machias, 2007. eChaucer. n.d. 28 Jul. 2015.

Desmond, Marilynn. Ovid’s Art and the Wife of Bath : The Ethics of Erotic Violence. Cornell University Press, 2007. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.mga.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost. com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=1837497&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Edwards, Suzanne. "The Rhetoric of Rape and the Politics of Gender in the Wife of Bath's Tale and the 1382 Statute of Rapes." Exemplaria: A Journal of Theory in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, vol. 23, no. 1, 2011, pp. 3-26. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.mga.edu/ login?url= "The Wife of Bath's Tale."

Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 7 Sep. 2018. Accessed on 19 Sep. 2018.