Lucy Goodfellow Wife of Bath Practice Essay

Explore how attitudes towards masculine roles are presented in The Wife of Bath's Prologue and
Tale by referring to lines 882-898 and one other passage of similar length.

You must discuss relevant contextual factors

Within the pages of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Medieval narrative poem ‘The Wife of Baths’ Prologue and
Tale’ poet explores attitudes towards masculine roles from the beginning of the poem. From his
creation of the eponymous wife whom is characterized by the general prologue to be a lustful or
‘gnat toothed’ woman with great knowledge of

‘remedies of love she knew per chance,

For she koude of that art the olde daunce’

due to her countless marriages. With this collection of key details in his introduction to the tellers
Chaucer depicts the wife to be an atypical representation of women during that era who were
prevalently ‘meek’ as those who spoke for themselves like the wife did where often punished with
the use of the scolds bridal and other now outdated techniques. Therefore, it can be said that the
wife’s attitude towards the masculine role would have been atypical also in comparison to other
women of the time. Throughout her tale and prologue the wife depicts the masculine role to be that
of violence and oppression. With the use of the knight in her tale and his shocking violent acts which
are emphasized by Chaucer’s use of blunt language as he ‘rafte hire maidenhed’ implying something
is being stolen with extreme violence and dominance creates the imagery of something being stolen
or forcibly taken. The knight’s rape of the maiden (who appears in the tale as a plot device furthering
the attitude of the male role being one of domination as she is otherwise a useless character) is the
ultimate act of dominance over women and Chaucer’s decision to make this domineering figure one
of presumed nobility and gentileese shows the attitude that all men should aspire to be this
dominating masculine figure in order to fulfil the masculine role. However with Chaucer’s choice of
lexis in this section with the aforementioned ‘rafte hire maidenhed’ and ‘lusty batchulour’ it can be
said that Chaucer is instead critiquing this masculine role and condemning unadulterated male
dominance due to his negative portrayal of the knight and his choice to have the ‘lusty bathculour’
be one of the knights of “king Arthour” who one would presume to be noble. This attitude toward
the dominate side of the male role is further supported by the Wife’s depiction of Jankyn when he
beats her and makes her “deef”. With Chaucer’s use of animal imagery with the simile “he up stire
as dooth a wood leoun” we as audience perceive his anger and aggressive personality as something
uncontrollable and his dominance of the wife with domestic abuse as he “smoot me on the heed” is
something horrifying as the character of Jankyn is equally horrified by his own actions as “he was
agast”. This implies that the attitude toward the masculine role being one of violence and
dominance is not only horrifying to the wife and therefore women as she is one of the few women
present in the Canterbury Tales, but also to men themselves. However, with Chaucer’s depiction of
the knight and his own unrepentant attitude toward the rape it can be said that Chaucer wasn’t
condemning the domination of men as part of their masculine role, yet because his act is presented
negatively through Chaucer’s use of lexis it can be said that the attitude toward the masculine role
being one of violence and domination is problematic and there must be change in order for such vile
acts to stop happening.
The attitude toward the masculine role being one of sovereignty is frequently critiqued by the character of the
wife. Her attitude toward the masculine role is in direct dichotomy to this as she believes that women should
have sovereignty over her husbands, this can be seen in her use of animal imagery throughout the sermon
jouyeux in which she confesses details of her life and her opinions on the male role. She uses predatory
animalistic imagery in reference to herself such as ‘leounesse’ and draws a direct comparison between herself
and her husbands (and men in general) with her use of simile in her “cat” and “moose” imagery. This shows
Lucy Goodfellow Wife of Bath Practice Essay

the wife’s attitude towards the masculine role to be one that invites submission as men are inherently less
powerful than women and allows for women to gain sovereignty over them. This shift in the patriarchal social
system can be seen in effect in the tale when the Queen decides the fate of the rapist knight rather than the
King who resides above her in the Great Chain of Being

“yaf him to the queene, al at hir wille

To chese wheither she wolde him save or spille”

Chaucer’s use of a heroic couplet here emphasizes this power shift and shows that the wife truly
wishes to put forward that the attitude of men being submissive is appropriate for the masculine
role. This is supported by the fact that the knight- a symbol for male dominance, is granted a
beautiful wife after submitting to the loathly lady which shows that women will reward men for their
change and allowance for them to gain power. Therefore, the wife presents the attitude toward the
male role being one of submission as something that is favorable and will benefit men. This can even
be seen in the subtle change in lexical tone when the wife depicts the knight and her other past
husbands to be more favorable when they have submitted to their wives’ desires. Her use of “old
bacon” to describe her previous husbands who did not willingly submit to her and her “blessed”
Jankyn who did submit to her shows her attitude on male dominance within the masculine role to be
a negative thing.

In conclusion Geoffrey Chaucer presents attitudes towards the masculine role through this tale’s
teller and her opinion on the men she has been entangled with throughout her life. However, this
means that her attitude towards the male role is biased and not a good representation of the
opinions of the larger female populous. Moreover, the poet’s depiction of the wife to embody all of
the negative qualities of a fallen women, further this disparity between her effective and believable
storytelling to a mediaeval audience as they would not have agreed with several of the religious
sentiments that she put forward having been educated by the church much like the Summoner and
the Friar who interrupt her prologue after hearing of her sinful life. Additionally, the fantasy setting
would have also helped to disillusion the audience that this world where a queen could rule over a
kingdom and “al this land fulfild of fierie” could exist in their current society. In his decision to have
the Queen decide the fate of the knight in the tale chaser subtly emphasizes the wife’s inability to
adhere to the Great Chain of Being, which was common law at the time would have meant that she
would have been an unreliable source to depict attitudes toward the masculine role as she was not a
good Christian wife as she wished to gain sovereignty over her husbands. Therefore, is questionable
whether Chaucer was trying to truly comment on the harmful aspects of the masculine role as the
character of the wife invites so much criticism due to her hypocrisy and manner of speaking about
men.