Wife of Bath’s character/ Alteration of medieval
gender role/ Marriages and experiences/ Control and power
The Wife of Bath has sometimes been read as the
epitome of a modern feminist, in the patriarchal world where the man accepted
as a father, a master or ruler, and an owner, but here the protagonist alters
her gender role and takes them as her own game.Wife of Bath is one the few
characters who occupy our attention commandingly, she is curiously a modern
woman in the Middle Ages, travelling the Middle East and Europe extensively,
robust and independent in nature, preferred the autobiographical mode, deeply concerned
with sexuality as much as she enjoys it.Chaucer begins her descriptions with
“gap tooth, her wimple, her hat, her five husbands, her cover chiefs…her
deafness and her remedies of love”.
A
group of critics, feminists, post-structuralists and the Marxists too comment
that in the Wife of Bath a woman image is portrayed who is against the misogyny
and the misogamy which was prevalent in the medieval culture. Another group of
critics comment Chaucer is not true to his age, otherwise he would not have created
a character which is too some extent out of the world and the embodiment of
superiority. She is uncontrollable in a way that crosses her limitations as in
marrying for five times.The lady belongs from a petty bourgeoisie, she is a
small-time entrepreneur in textile trade which had come to dominate England by
the thirteenth century. Chaucer’s portrait is an acute awareness of a woman who
is psychologically superior because she has her power to satisfy herself by the
“sexual economy”, and the control and dominance over her husbands.
The
Wife of Bath believes that experience is the greatest authority, and since she
has been married five times, she certainly considers herself an authority on
marriage: “Experience,
though no authority Were in this world, were good enough for me, To speak of
woe that is in all marriage; For, masters, since I was twelve years of age,
Thanks be to God Who is for aye alive, Of husbands at church door have I had
five.” In her lengthy Prologue, the Wife of Bath recites her autobiography,
announcing in her very first word that “experience” will be her guide. Yet,
despite her claim that experience is her sole authority, the Wife of Bath
apparently feels the need to establish her authority in a more scholarly way. It is ironic to see the even though she
is not religious but, she uses the Bible as justification to pardon her
behavior.
She imitates the ways of churchmen and scholars by backing up her claims with
quotations from Scripture and works of antiquity.
Of her five husbands, three have been “good” and two have been “bad.”
The first three were good, she admits, mostly because they were rich, old, and
submissive. She also
discusses about how she had control over four of her husbands saying “I
governed hem so wel after my lawe”, which indicates that she governed them
according to her law or her way. She laughs to
recall the torments that she put these men through and recounts a typical
conversation that she had with her older husbands. She would accuse her
-husband of having an affair, launching into a tirade in which she would
charge him with a bewildering array of accusations. In the “Wife of Bath's Tale,” Alison is suggesting
control that women should have. She is a strong-willed and dominant woman who
herself gets what she wants when she wants it. She cannot accept defeat no
matter what the cost. She feels that this is the way things should be and men
should obey her. She should not be controlled or told what to do by others,
especially by a man. She displays a very gluttonous and power-thirsty attitude
in her marital relationships. Although she is argumentative and enjoys talking,
the Wife is intelligent and commonsensical. Through her experiences with her
husbands, she has learned how to provide for herself in a world where women had
little independence or power. The chief manner in which she has gained control
over her husbands has been in her control over their use of her body. The Wife
uses her body as a bargaining tool, withholding sexual pleasure until her
husbands give her what she demands. She is boldly saying that she wants to use
her "instrument" or body as a weapon and that she owns her husband,
who owes her. Since she is his wife she feels he should bow to her.
It
upsets her when her fifth husband, a clerk, is more interested in books than he
was in her.When she does not establish supremacy over her fifth husband it
seems to excite her because she seems to like challenges. While he is reading a
collection of stories about how bad women are she snatches the book and rips
some pages out. This instantly heats up her husband, and he hits her. This is
how she becomes deaf. She pretends to be dead trying to make him feel guilty.
Her concern here is not to make him understand what he has done is wrong, but
to use her helplessness as away of achieving power and authority over him,
which she ultimately gains. In her discussion of her fourth and fifth husbands, the Wife of Bath
begins to let her true feelings show through her argumentative rhetoric. Her
sensitivity about her age begins to show through, and, as she reveals
psychological depth, she becomes a more realistic, sympathetic, and compelling
character
Thus
the Wife of Bath is a rounded character who develops and
changes. She has been married since her childhood when she was twelve. Her use of
initiative and ambition serve to defy the typical feminine psychological
characteristics of the time, simply reinforce any negative stereotypes about
the feminine psyche that already existed within the audience.By taking the control in
herhands, she challenges the patriarchal roles in marriage; therefore her
actions can be acceptedas “feminist” but it is vital to remember that the text
is considered “protofeminist”.
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