PROLOGUE

Satiric approach where he exaggerates and make fun, saying something while meaning
the opposite.
Horatian gentle satire, just to make fun, not to offend.
Juvenalian satire, brutal satire.
Chaucer agenda: Concern about religious hipocresy, relationship between men and
women.
Aristotelian pyramid, from less value of women, then in the upper level the men and in
the top the gods. Men run the world and tell women what to do, that´s the “natural”.
Trying to make men equal to women would be unnatural. The church held the same
view.
Men have an obligation to inflict pain on women with a stick if they didn´t do what men
wanted. In houses should be a stick with its circumference no larger that the thick of the
thumb of the man of the house.
Another greek term for man is “patro-familis” , representing the patriarchal view.
People who challenge the patriarchy, are feminists. Going against that is going against
gods, is heresy. Chaucer has issues with this view, questioning the fact that this rule is
natural. He creates major controversy with his character of the wife of Bath
Bath is a city in England.
Wife of Bath will stand up and introduce herself in her own prologue. The pages that
precede her tale, there is no prologue and that is very controversial. Because he creates a
character who stands up in front of men and says the following.
She says: let me telle you about myself,. Sehe has been married 5 times, one thing she
knows is that marriage is to live in misery.
She can´t hardly wait to have his 6th man. She wants a man that will be both her debtor
and her slave, bearing his pain until death. She not only speaks in front of man, but she
also discuss with them in public,
She first wants to make sure that she doesn´t mean to upset anyone, Chaucer says that
because he is being an iconoclast.
Iconoclast is to go against sacred views. Through the wife of Bath, Chaucer will become
a great iconoclast of the patriarchy. She says her idea about men and women, and how
she controls men. She goes on and on in the long prologue.
“let´s talk about sex” women love sex but they have to pretend as they don´t.
She says radical things.
“let me tell you how i use to control my men” her men were always trying to control
her, but there wasn´t a way because for her, women are way more intelligent that men.
The wife of Bath thinks that through sex women control men. She knew her man was
with another woman, she goes outside with a sext outfit to have fun, she sends her back,
she doesn´t obey. She knew he was going to go after her. She came early in the morning,
she goes into the house, he is with a stick, she says “im so glad you are here”, she says
that she felt bad, she came back but he wasn´t there, she went looking for him, she says
“i thought this relation was built on trust”.
She manipulates men, the language “I built him a cross out of the same wood he would
use to crucify me on, she outsmarted him. In Chaucer´s day you kept your money in a
safe with only one key, the man controlled the money, she says “by the way, how come
she can´t have the key to the safe because it´s a fair question. Chaucer brings up the
issue of which one has to control the money.
If he is the smarter and that´s way he controls money, she should control it.
Wife of Bath is radical in presentation of opinions. Women have a voice
She says that she made a mistake because she married for looks instead of for money,
that was a mistake. He was young, good looking, and he tried to control him. He was
abusive and hit her. She said his husband had a book that he liked to read, this books
told stories about all the terrible things women did to men. In Roman times, a guy had a
large plantation with a tree, and the guy was sad because all his 3 wifes hanged
themselves from that tree, his friend asked for a branch of that tree for the same thing to
happen to him.
He read stories like that one, and the storie of Eve and how she is the reason why all sin
came into the world because she ate from that tree in the garde of Eden. (689-694)akes a
point saying that, of course Eve is going to be blamed. Because men wrote the book,
have a woman wrote the storie, the storie would be different. If a woman had written it
probably a man would be guilty. Women get blamed because men write the books.
One night she says i had enough of him, he is there, drunk, reading the book, she
grabbed the book, teared out several pages, throwed the book, he falled back into the
fire, he got on fire, he stands up inraged, he hit her, and thats why she is deaf from one
ear. She fall, he thought she is going to die, and in that moment she knew she had him,
she pretended that she was dying. She said that she knew she was dying , and she asked
for a kiss, when she reached down for her for a kiss, she hit him as a payback. He asked
are you going to die or not.Finnally he “handed over the bridle reins to me” that is to
say he let her be the leader, and the only thing he said was “go wherever you want Alice
just remember you are my wife”, the she says “you can beat a girl, you can beat a
woman, you can be mean, make her afraid of you but she will never love you, the only
way for that to happen is to give her, if he gives her freedom to do whatever she wants.
You have a choice, you can scare a girl to obey you, but she will never love yoi, if you
want to be loved, the only way is to give her total freedom.The guy had a nasty choice,
you can dominate her, but you won´t be loved or you can say do whatever you want I
trust you, that is the only way to love you. She says Oh yeah i was going to tell a story.
Finally she remembers that she was going to tell a story, the pardner says really you are
going to tell the story now You talk a lot. The friar says, why don´t you shut up and let
her tell her story. The pardner says you are attacking me?Friar and partdner get ready to
fight, the friar says he can come up with a story about a partner, to which the partner
says he can come up with a story about a friar. The friar tells a story about a partner.
The wife gets the chance to tell the story.

TALE

In her tale she supports the idea that in marriage wife´s and husband´s should be equal.
She goes through a long Horatian satire of the ways in which she used to control her
men.
This was humorous but also subversive, because in Chaucer´s day the rule of thumb
applied. The wife of Bath is going to tell a story attacking this fact of society.

One of the earliest feminiest thinkers. Feminist means the attack on the patriarchy,
attack on the idea that women should be subserviant to men.
The key for a guy who wants a girl to love him, is trust.
Little introduction, nasty things about pardoner.

Line 139: In older days there use to be fairies, but now we have friars, who like to go
around blessing everything even outhouses.
Friar and the wife had an arguement and now she attacks even more.
Today friars are everywhere (they hide under the bushes, by the side of the road, etc)and
they are always there for you and if they can´t take care they will take your virtue, force
you to have sex.

In King Arthur´s days there was a knight who was a “lusty liver” (he enjoys the
company of women) “steals the maiden hat” of a lady, he rapes it, and in the process he
violates the girl and the code of the knights. He is brought in front of the king and queen
, he faces a trial ehn he is probably going to get executed.
The queen says he is too handsome to cut his head, instead they give him a challenge
that would take a year and a day. What will that challenge be, is the heart of the story.
It is significant that in those times, a King who is willing to let his Queen make the
rules.
The Queen calls the knight in front oh her and asks the knight to tell her a simple
question: What is the one thing the women most desire, if he can´t he would be
executed.
He goes asking to women everywhere, but all of them disagree.
Some of the things women most desire: wealth and treasure, honor, gorgeous clothes,
falttery by the men they love.
Some say freedom to do as they please. The wife of Bath says that women don´t like to
be told what´s wrong with the, if you try to do so they will remember.
Some women like to say the thing that they want most is to be known as able to keep a
secret, the wife of bath says it is impossible.
A new story folds back in the story, about Midas.
Chaucer makes reference to Ovid´s metamorphosis, all he touches turn to gold.
The wife of Bath makes observations about the thing that are told to the knight. After
his long hair, Midas had long ears and he was afraid that someone nkew it, the only
person who knew was his wife. She swore she would not tell anyone. Trying to keep the
secret drove her crazy.
The wife of bath makes an allusion to Ovid and the famous story of Midas. The ultimate
message is that women can´t keep a secret.
All stories of evil are protagonized by woman like Pandora and Eve.
Men invent stories to keep women in their place.
The knight gets to the point that he almost gives up, without an answer he gets ready to
return.
He is riding home, without an answer, he sees a bunch of beautiful women dancing in
the rain, when he gets there the beautiful women disappear and there is only an ugly old
lady.
The old woman says that old women know things, recalling the story of the pardoner´s
tale when it is suggested that an old man know somethings and a young man should
show respect.
She asks the knight to make a deal in return for anything she wants.
The climax of the story is when the knight arrives in front of the Queen.
The answer to the question is: all women want to be able to tell men what to do, control
over men. Turning the patriarchy upside down, instead men having the power to tell
women what to do, women should tell men what to do. Attack on the patriarchy and
nobility and the idea that old people is better than young people.
The knight saves his life, but all the sudden the old lady calls him and says he had to
marry her because she gave him the right answer and saved his life. He doesn´t want
that and offers whatever she wants instead of marrying her. She says that he is not only
going to marry her but he has to marry her.
They get married and in the wedding night, he was no interest in that marriage. He is in
deep sorrow and anguish.
He will insult her in several ways. The knight insults her wife because: 1)she is old, 2)
she is ugly, 3)she is poor, 4) “low bread” she comes from no family, not from nobility,
he should marry someone from upper class.
He says he can´t be blamed for crying for those reasons.
Chaucer makes the woman character to give a lecture to the knight, about respect. He
attacks on nobility and gentleman.
He considers himself to be a gentleman because he was born in an upper class family.
Gentleman are not born gentleman, you become a gentleman when you know how to
treat people with respect.
You do not inherit from your parents and grandparents nobility, just because your
parents are great people you won´t be, you must choose to be a gentleman, you have to
treat people with respect even if they are not of the same race or class. Skin or money
has nothing to do.
Sometimes being born in a wealthy or powerful family hurts the kids, makes them mean
and not nice. A boy comes often from parents. In 14 hundred England people were not
equal just because they were people.
If you could become a gentleman just by being born to a good family you would have
never raped that girl. He raped her because he considered himself to be superior to the
girl he raped. If you were trully a knight you wouldn´t consider yourself superior.
You are the way you act, it doesn´t matter money or family. You are nobody because
you don´t know how to treat people.
You think you can get away with that because you always did, but you are a failure.
“Gentility comes from God” not because you are born in a noble family. “gentle is he
that does a gentle deed”
He finally lets her choose if she could become a beautiful girl or an excellent friend.
Deal: you give me a kiss and then she would become a beautiful girl and and excellent
companion. Men most desire the most beautiful girl and the best companion
The wife of bath ends with the knight getting everything he wanted, but he had to listen
to the lecture, and in the end he gave her everything a woman desires.