Power of the Woman in "The Wife Of Bath's Tale"

Introduction

The Wife of Bath tells the story of a rapist, who, to save his life, must travel the world to find out what women desire most. "The Wife of Bath's Tale" opens with a traditional romance beginning, looking back to the days of King Arthur, when elves used to dance in the meadows. This prelude veers quickly into social satire when the Wife explains that the elves have been banished by "limytours" (limiters were holy friars licensed to beg in a limited area) who now thickly populate the countryside and pose no other threat to women travelers save that of rape. The tale itself begins with a story of rape that of a maiden by one of King Arthur's knights. As punishment for his crime, the knight is sentenced to death. Arthur's queen and other ladies of the court beg the king to spare the knight's life, and Arthur gives the knight into their keeping, granting them the power to decide his fate. The queen decides to pose the knight a question: What thing is it that women most desire? If he can give the correct answer, he may go free. If not, his original sentence will be carried out. Since he has no immediate response, she gives him a year and a day to seek and learn the answer, after which he must return to court and meet his fate (Ruud, pp. 1).

The narrator's empowerment of the female through the plot in Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Tale is distinctly revealed with the fate of the knight. The knight is a representation of male dominance from the opening of the tale because of his raping of a woman. The only thing “wrong” about his actions is not the fact that he raped a woman, but because he raped a woman of a noble class. This speaks to the ideas that the Wife of Bath is challenging. It is perfectly acceptable for the knight, who is of an elevated class, to rape a female of a lower class than he. This paints the woman as an object subject to the whims of man. The knight is arrested and his fate is given over to the queen by the king, and the he is now at the mercy of women, when before he was completely sovereign as a male (in most aspects of the culture). Despite the fact that the women are the judges of this knight, it is interesting to note that the right had to still be allowed by the king, another man (Britton, pp. 1).

"The Wife of Bath's Tale" belongs to the genre of chivalric romance, which was popular in medieval Europe from the 12th century onward. Typically set in the legendary realm of King Arthur, these tales describe the fairy-tale-like adventures of knights and ladies and other members of the feudal aristocracy. Ideologically, these tales were founded upon the ideals of loyalty, honor, and courtly love. The plot of ...