Research Paper About The Wife of Bath - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 5 Words: 1639 Downloads: 10 Date added: 2019/10/30 Category Literature Essay Level High school Tags: Wife of Bath Essay Did you like this example? The Wife of Baths Tale begins and ends with power in the hands of men, suggesting that a world in which women wield power is only possible in the fantastical land of fairy. This tale only brings one question. What do women desire most? The Wife of Baths sacrifice of power to her husband after he has proven his willingness to grant it to her to suggest that what women really desire the most is not power, but love. Another answer couldve been sovereignty over their husbands or equal power in a relationship. The Wife is a solid devotee for ladies entitlement to have, and appreciate, sexual relations, all through marriage. Concerning marriage, she is a sequential monogamist (five and forgetting about), however she focuses numerous instances of polygamous relational unions in the Bible. Regardless of whether Chaucer was a feminist living well before his time, his picture of the Wife of Bath in The Canterbury Tales is a convincing study of medieval womens freedom. Precarious and self-serving, the Wife, or Alison, deliberately challenges that women ought to be accommodating to their instructing partners. In Chaucers time, the antifeminism of the church was a strong controlling segment. Alison protects her right to remarry in the wake of being widowed (multiple times) by describing the Biblical story of the Samaritan lady at the well who was living without any father present with a man in the wake of being widowed multiple times. Jesus told her to wed this fifth man. Alison uses this story an d the cases of Solomon, Abraham, and Jacob, every one of whom had numerous spouses. She cant help contradicting the Churchs teaching that virtue is desirable over second marriages; she trusts that by sharing herself, she is closer to the real lessons of the Bible. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Research Paper About The Wife of Bath" essay for you Create order After the Wife of Baths five unions, she has discovered, through experience, that the main path for her to accomplish control is through financial autonomy. As Alison knows for a fact, the genuine products of marriage are set in the marriage bed. Marriage is the way to survival, and that is what Alison looks for and finds. The root of marital control is economic control The idea is clear: control is the power of the purse. She gets economic control by her first four husbands. They were all rich and when they passed, she received their allowances. Her fifth husband was completely different from the rest. Seemingly, she had enough money, she expanded her horizons going for someone younger and less experienced. The Wife of Bath seems to have control over her suitors and she is definitely a woman that is way ahead of her time. The tale begins and ends with power in the hands of men suggesting that women can only have power and control in fairytales. The Wife of Bath is smart, manipulative and always gets what she wants. She is proof of women having both power and love. She uses what she has, sex appeal, to be in control. During this point in time, this is huge because it was so frowned upon. The Wife of Bath softens her views of aid and love but continues the theme of self-sufficiency and power. Alison suggests that a mans true happiness can be reached when he allows his wife to have some level of independence. The knight in the Wife of Baths Tale is faced with answering the question of what women desire most. The fact that the knight does not instantly know the answer to the question proves that men are unaware to the feelings of a woman. Men do not realize the needs of a woman. The wife ends up giving the knight the choice of having her be either, beautiful and unfaithful or ugly and loyal. My lady and my love and my wife so dear, I put myself in your wise governing, Choose yourself which one may be most pleasing, And most honor to both you and me too. I do not care now which one of the two; What pleases you suffices now for me (Chaucer 1898). She is very pleased by his choice of leaving the decision to her and decides to be both beautiful and faithful to him. And when the knight saw all this verily, That she now was so fair and young too, For joy he seized her within his arms too, His heart was all bathed in a bath of bliss. A thousand times in a row, he did her kiss, And she obeyed him then in everything And that was to his pleasure or his liking. And thus they both lived until their lives end In in perfect joy (1899). The sense of balance and equality are shown when the knight tells her hed be happy with anything, but, he was hoping she would choose to be beautiful, but he gives her the power to decide and she chooses what he wants and they both end up happy and loving each other more. Ultimately, women want the ability to make decisions for themselves instead of being ordered around like servants. Women want to be respected as equal partners of men rather than their subordinates. Women do not want to dominate over men, but simply to be their equals to show that they are loved in that manner. The Wife of Bath uses the examples of three different relationships to show her idea that the man generally abuses his power over a woman and that in an ideal relationship the man should concede control to the woman. In the article Conflict and Relationship, Sovereignty and Survival: Parables of Power in the Wife of Baths Prologue by Barbara Gottfried, she states Even as she attempts a deconstruction of patriarchal literature in an experiential revision of it, the Wife necessarily falls short of the goal of overcoming authority because she can only define herself in relation to that authority. She does not speak simply about herself but realizes herself through her relationship to the various manifestations of patriarchy. Not only does she borrow her categories and the terms of her self-evaluation from the literature she condemns; patriarchal authority determines the fundamental bases for her self-definition. Along these lines, regardless of how much power the Wife of Bath thinks she has, she is constantly tied to patriarchy system. With the end goal to be completely powerful, she should throw away the world-views that she attempts to adapt to her specific situation, and replace them with her own beliefs, which in my opinion she does, but according to Gottfried, she doesnt accomplish this. The Wife of Bath is a woman of passion, who desires most of all to be more powerful than any man, her husband, or her lover. When we look at the prologue and her tale we are able to see who she is and to get a real sense of idea of how she actually views herself. She is confident about her knowledge of love, virginity and marriage because she has been married five times and states that her experience is more important than knowledge derived from intellectuals and books. She is very unique for a traditional type of woman during the time that this tale was written because she does not feel shameful for her experiences in life, instead, she feels that living by experience is the best way to live. Geoffrey Chaucer paints a very controversial picture of the Wife of Bath. On one hand she is crude, sexually explicit, and hypocritical, but on the other hand, she is humorous, brave, and fundamental. She is proud of her life and the fact that she has had five husbands at the church door does not dishonor her in any way. On the other hand, she truly believes in her viewpoint and her virtues and she supports them with quotes from the bible. That is ironic because she is differing womens oppression with the piece of literature that has been used by men as a justification for womens oppression. She questions if the Bible commands virginity and marriage only one time, but realizes that, in fact, many men in the Bible had more than one wife. Chaucer uses irony and sarcasm to test the churchs oppression of women by allowing the Wife of Bath to speak freely about sex, marriage and womens desires. She brags about lying, cheating and misleading her husbands and she shows little compassion to any of the men in her life. Yet, she is a woman of a strong character, who knows what she wants and continuously fights against male dominance. In modern times, The Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy and the Wife of Baths tale have a lot in common. Both involve a disturbing (or troubled) character whose past relationships with women are not entirely above par but finds redemption and eventually marriage in another relationship that has changed him into a loving and respectful husband. But both of these stories are fantasies so cant be seen as an accurate picture of relationships between men and women. In the end, only audiences can decide how they choose to read or interpret stories. In conclusion, The Wife of Baths Tale begins and ends with power in the hands of men, suggesting that a world in which women wield power is only possible in the fantastical land of fairy. In her Prologue, she has the determination to take on the male-centered thinkers of the Church and the wife-beaters of the overall population. The Wife of Bath knows how to work the male-dominant culture. This tale only brings one question. What do women desire most? The Wife of Baths sacrifice of power to her husband after he has proven his willingness to grant it to her to suggest that what women really desire the most is not power, but love.

The Heroic Code - 1182 Words

Samantha Budd 01/30/2013 Honors World Literature Ms. Iverson The Heroic Code The life of a warrior is not always filled with glamour and glory. Warriors cannot simply waltz through a tough battle, shedding blood left and right and taking all the glory and credit for themselves. There are often tough decisions to be made. Warriors also cannot just think of themselves, for their decisions often affect the lives of others as well. They need the heroic code to guide them in their decision making. In this essay, I will describe the heroic code and share its applications in the stories of Beowulf, Gilgamesh and Noah, and The Illiad, as well as my other personal experiences. I will start with the story of The Man of La Mancha, which†¦show more content†¦Beowulf’s loyalty is most prominent at the end when he fights the dragon. He did not want to fight the dragon because of his age, but felt that he owed it to the king to do it. Beowulf was so highly revered that everyone was deeply saddened by his death. He truly lived his life exactly to the Germani c heroic code. Nearly all of Beowulf’s actions in this poem follow the heroic code. He saved lives, fought every battle bravely, was loyal even in situations of life and death, courageous, and rewarded and revered even the warriors underneath him. The fact that he died in battle just means that he did not only live as a hero but die as one too. The last example of the heroic code in epic stories is from The Epic of Gilgamesh. Similarly to Beowulf, Achilles, and Hector, Gilgamesh was very strong and very brave, like a typical hero. He is on a quest to be the ultimate hero and achieve everlasting life. Gilgamesh has fought and won battles against several infamous monsters: Humbaba, the Bull of Heaven, and a pack of vicious lions. However, even though Gilgamesh was very brave and strong, he was not a good king to his people. He put his own interests before theirs and ruled with a cruel iron fist, as well as being obsessed with his own legacy. In conclusion, the heroic code was a set of beliefs and values that guided warriors to make the tough decisions that they would undoubtedly beShow MoreRelated The Heroic Code Essay503 Words   |  3 Pages The Heroic Code Often, epic heroes can be characterized the same way. They are portrayed as superhuman beings, possessing strength, physical beauty, and intelligence. These heroes aspired to live by a heroic code that would ensure immortality by keeping their memory alive in the people. Homers The Iliad shows how the heroic code was ingrained in ancient Greek warriors. In many cases, the Greeks put this code of honor above their own lives. During a battle, Glaukos, a Trojan, and DiomedesRead MoreThe Heroic Code Of Sir Gawain841 Words   |  4 Pageshis journey that forced him to stay true to his Heroic Code. 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One hero in The Iliad best represented the heroic code through his actions and his mentality; this character is â€Å"swift-footed† Achilles, though Hec tor could also be considered as the man that is the epitome of the heroic code. It could

Media Studies †make a music video Free Essays

For our coursework we decided to make a music video, based on our original idea of a â€Å"Jackass† style programme. Jackass is a programme of various dangerous and stupid stunts, which are all a bit different. We decided against this idea as it restricted our power to change it into an original concept. We will write a custom essay sample on Media Studies – make a music video or any similar topic only for you Order Now We decided to make a music video using a punk song, as these have a very broad band of what can be included. We started by making a song in the style of a well known band, Blink 182, but we changed it to incorporate our life at college. We are loosely basing it on a theme of our college life but at the different extremes. We are using what Levi Strauss called Binary Opposites, these are extreme opposites, for example a bad guy being ugly and a good guy being extremely attractive. We are using the Binary opposites of maturity and immaturity, which is a basic college idea, the mature students that do their work and the immature students that joke about and don’t take things seriously. We thought of things that would be included in a punk music video, we had the idea of the band rehearsing in a music room and being very professional about it and then came up with the opposite which is practicing in the refectory and playing random objects rather than proper instruments. Another idea we had is spending time leisurely we had the idea of a group of people sitting around playing cards with the comparison of them all running around like mad brandishing water-guns and having a play fight. The next one is also a leisurely activity, playing foosball at the table in the refectory comparing it to doing reckless skating and crashing into each other. We then thought back to the programme Jackass and one of their famous sketches is the presenters being pushed around in a shopping trolley. We thought of using this but needed a binary opposite to go in it so we thought of having someone pushing the trolley quite normally with shopping in it. Also just walking around college, the band walking down a corridor and turning around a corner with them running down the corridor in the underpants and running into the girls toilet. These give off a lot of ideas of the maturity and immaturity of college. We thought of using the phrase that we had heard a lot from the show South Park, whenever there is drugs or alcohol involved, one of the characters, Chef always says â€Å"There is a time and a place for everything, and it’s called college!† and thought that we could relate this to the video. Another idea we had was using the Kuleshov Effect, where we would take shots of random things such as people talking chilling out and people running around like mad and pulling faces. The themes we are using are Jackass, The Teenage years and a parody effect of Blink 182 videos. We are also going to have parts of temporal disorder in the video, using the video effects on my camcorder, this will give the impression the person watching is on drugs because the song is related to this, although we will show no shots of drugs or anybody taking drugs as this would be to suggestive, we are only giving hints of teenage life but not actually showing all angles. There is no actual storyline to have a linear narrative to the video, its more random as this is what college is like despite being a regulated day, anything can happen! The idea of using teenage life although is very common is so broad that we can change it to our own tastes and use our own characters in it. The whole video is supposed to be a joke filled, fun and non-serious which is the whole idea of punk rock, a lot of songs are just parodies. We are also going to have lots of shots of the band so people can see them and know who is playing. Bands do this so they can see who is performing and identify with them and decide who is their favourite. Sometimes they can pretend to play roles which can lead on to a narrative in the video, taking for example, Sum 41 in their â€Å"In Too Deep† video they have the lay about band, with the jocks fighting against each other in a diving contest, we want the band to win which is made in a binary opposite the baddies are made to be Speedo wearing narcissists and the band wearing any old shorts and not particularly full of themselves. This is the kind of effect we want to achieve with binary opposites. How to cite Media Studies – make a music video, Papers