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The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer is a collection of stories told by
a group of pilgrims on their way to Thomas a' Becket's tomb in Canterbury.
Throughout the stories, women are often portrayed in two opposing ways. The
women in these tales are either depicted as pristine and virginal, or as cunning
and deceitful. First, women are described as being pristine and virginal. This
type of woman is always beautiful and has men vying for her affections. However,
she is so pure that it seems she is unattainable. She is not treated like a real
person and people never ask her what she wants. This virginal woman is captured
in the character of Emily in The Knight's Tale. Emily, who is described by the
author as radiant and serene (32) enchants two cousins and cause them to argue
over her. Palamon is so love-struck that he states Woman or Goddess, which? I
cannot say. (32). He doesn't even know her yet calls her ... my lady, whom I
love and serve (34). When Arcite is released, he becomes sick because he can no
longer see her. He is described as Thin as a shaft, as dry, with nothing
left./His eyes were hollow, grisly to behold,/Fallow his face, like ashes pale
and cold (39). When the cousins finally reunite, Palamon claims Emily for his
own once again by saying You shall not love my lady Emily./I, no one else, will
love her! (45).
They are engaged in battle when the king rides by with his wife
and Emily. When confronted, Palamon tells the king that Arcite dares love Emily
(49), and that he is also in love with Emily the Bright (49). Even though Emily
is sitting right there he still doesn't talk directly to her, instead he tells
the king. Emily is herself immune to love: she has seen neither of the knights,
nor is she aware that they have seen her, much less that they are in love with
her (Hallissy 59). Poor virginal Emily knows no more of this affair,/By God,
than does a cuckoo or a hare! (51). However, the king tells the cousins to get
Ready by battle to decide his claim/ to Emily. (52) without even asking her what
she wanted to do. If he had asked her, he would have found out that she wanted
to remain a virgin and marry no one. She even prayed that she would be mistress,
no, nor wife. (65). However, she was forced to marry Palamon when he won the
battle. Secondly, women are described as cunning and deceitful. This type of
woman causes her husband nothing but heartache. She is depicted as a liar and a
cheater with low morals. She is a woman neither to be trusted nor respected. In
many of the stories she makes a fool of her husband by having adulterous
affairs.
This type of woman is depicted in the Miller's Tale, the Merchant's
Tale, and in the character of the Wife of Bath. In the Miller's Tale, Alison who
is described as . . a fair young wife, her body as slender/As any weasel's, and
as soft and tender; (90) marries an old man named John. John then takes in a
lodger by the name of Nicholas. Since there is a big age difference between
Alison and her husband, there is an assumption that Alison is sexually
unsatisfied and thus easily seducible by a younger and more virile man--a man
just like Nicholas (Hallissy 77). John foolishly leaves the two at home alone
while he goes to Osney. Nicholas seizes this opportunity to make his move: he
held her haunches hard (91) and begs her to satisfy him. Immediately: She gave a
spring, just like a skittish colt Boxed in a frame for shoeing, and with a jolt
Managed in time to wrench her head away. And said, Give over, Nicholas, I say!
(91). However, it rapidly becomes clear that Alison consents to Nicholas's
advances. In fact, so swift is the courtship that it is clear that Alison is a
woman of exceedingly flexible moral standards-- she is, in modern terms, easy (Hallissy
77). It is not long before another man named Absolon also falls in love with
beautiful Alison. He thinks of Alison as a lady to be courted. But like her
husband John, he has deceived himself about Alison: she is a fast and easy girl
who does not require much courting (Hallissy 80). Throughout the rest of the
tale she continues to be a faithless wife and clever liar (Hallissy 79). She
makes a fool of both her husband and Absalon who are both oblivious to what she
is really like. The Merchant's Tale also presents a cunning, deceitful woman.
The whole story is handled with great dramatic effect by the Merchant, himself
unhappily mated, to give point to his bitter condemnation of matrimony and to
the women to whose evil devices it exposes men (Nardo 23). In the opening, an
old man named January felt an urge/So violent to be a wedded man. (357). He
thinks having a wife is the most wonderful thing in the world. For who is so
obedient as a wife (358). In fact, he believes he can buy as a wife a domestic
beast that will serve his every wish and, somehow, fulfill his most erotic
fantasies (Donaldson 48). Therefore, he chooses May, the most beautiful virgin
he has ever seen, to be his wife. After their wedding night, May didn't think
his games were worth a groat (373). When January fails to satisfy her sexually,
a young man named Damian tells her he is in love with her. In return, she: Wrote
a letter in her own fair hand In which she granted him her very grace. There
needed nothing but the time and the place To grant the satisfaction he desired
He was to have whatever he required. (377) She proceeds to carry on a passionate
love affair with him thus exposing her wicked ways. Finally, January goes blind
and insists on holding May's hand all the time. This still doesn't stop her from
continuing her liaisons with Damian. The climax of their affair comes in what is
known as the Pear-Tree Episode which serves the Merchant as an example of the
wicked wiles of women (Nardo 23). May tells Damian to wait for her and January
in a garden. When she and January get there, January asks her to always be
faithful to him. She passionately says that she would rather die a horrible
death than to . . . do my family that shame/Or bring so much dishonour on my
name/As to be false . . (382). This is a bold-faced lie because she knows that
Damian is waiting for her in a pear tree to do exactly what she just said she
would never do. She then tells her trusting husband that she wants a pear and
needs him to give her a boost.
Once in the tree, Damian Pulled up her smock at
once and in he thrust (386). At that moment Pluto gave January his sight back
and Proserpine helps May by putting a ready answer on her toungue/And every
woman's after, for her sake (384). When May realizes that she has been
caught,she quickly tells him that she helped his eyes back to sight. She was
told that nothing could cure them better than for me To struggle with a fellow
in a tree (387). Not only does she lie her way out of the situation, but she
also tells him that he should be thanking her! Throughout the tale she
consistently lied and cheated on her kindly, trusting husband. The Wife of Bath
is also a very good example of the cunning, deceitful woman. She'd had five
husbands (Chaucer, Prologue to The Canterbury Tales 74). This was considered to
be extremely immoral in her day (Hallissy 105). The Prologue also said Her hose
were of the finest scarlet red/and gartered tight (74). Her array is flamboyant
for a woman past forty much less a widow (Hallissy 103). In fact, she defies
authority just by her appearance alone (Hallissy 105). The Wife of Bath is also
not fully to be trusted (Parker 53). There are many contradictions between her
theory and her practice. Throughout her prologue, the Wife recalls anecdotes
from her own life to make the point that the happiest marriages are those in
which the wife is the boss (Nardo 22). However, there is a contradiction when
she describes her fifth husband.
When she married him, she says she handed him
the money, lands and all/That had ever been given me before (275). She also says
that her fifth husband had beaten me in every bone (272). She was in no way the
boss in that marriage, and yet she said I think I loved him best (272). Her idea
that women should have mastery over their husbands, and many of her other ideas
take on a feminist point of view. However, the irony of her feminism as seen in
her tale is that it not only subscribes to the antifeminist cliche that all
women, in their heart of hearts, desire to be raped, but it reinforces it
(Williams 70). In her tale, a knight rapes a woman but goes unpunished. In fact,
it seems as if he is even rewarded. He is allowed to marry a beautiful woman. In
addition, the Wife's professed beliefs in female sovereignty in marriage are not
finally followed by the heroine of her tale, who obeys her husband: And she
obeyed hym in every thyng/That myght doon hym plesance or likyng (Parker 53).
The Wife of Bath is shown to be the worst of all the women portrayed in The
Canterbury Tales. In conclusion, throughout The Canterbury Tales there is a dual
depiction of women. Throughout the tales of the Knight, the Miller, the
Merchant, and in the entire character of the Wife of Bath,the women are shown to
be extremely pristine and virginal, or extremely cunning and deceiving. The
women are either depicted as completely pure or completely wicked without an
in-between.
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