The Idea of Honor in Chaucers The Wife of Baths Prologue...

This essay compares the conception honor in Geoffrey Chaucers The Wife of Baths Prologue and The Franklins Tale from The Canterbury Tales. The problem of honor seems to be timeless in its difficulties. There are many ideas and opinions concerning this delicate subject, which always is popular, along with its ability to frustrate and perplex the human. During the time of Chaucer, females such as the Wife of Bath were asserting their rights against the forces of male chauvinism. Apparently, the battle of the sexes for supremacy is everlasting in its intensity and has always been fought. Consequently, we have both male and female chauvinists, and they appear in Chaucers works. They make for interesting reading. In â€Å"The Franklin’s†¦show more content†¦Aurelius reveals his love to her and jokingly she agrees to his love and embrace if he removes all the rocks from the east coast of Brittany. Aurelius goes to a student-magician and agrees to pay him one thousand pounds if he can do the impossible and remove all the rocks from the coast of Brittany. The magician is successful in the deed so Aurelius goes to Dorigen to ask her to keep her promise. She is shocked and contemplates suicide rather than disgrace herself. During this her husband returns home and learns of what has happen. Even though it causes him great grief, Arveragus tells her to fulfill her promise. Aurelius finds out of his nobility in telling her to do that and cancels the promise, and the student magician also cancels the debt Aurelius owes him. In â€Å"The Wife of Bath’s Tale,† the Wife of Bath is married five times and always tries to have mastery over her husband; however, at the time she gains mastery over a husband, he dies. After explain how she gained mastery over her fifth husband she tells a tale of a young knight in King Arthur’s court who rapes a young girl. The law says he should be killed but the queen and ladies of the court beg and keep him alive. He tells a foul old lady he will do whatever she demands if she saves his life and she does by giving him the answer he needs. The old lady demands that the knight marry her and in agony the knight agrees too.Show MoreRelatedAttitudes Toward Marriage in Chaucers the Canterbury Tales1477 Words   |  6 PagesAttitudes Toward Marriage in Chaucers The Canterbury Tales Chaucers The Canterbury Tales demonstrate many different attitudes toward and perceptions of marriage. Some of these ideas are very traditional, such as that discussed in the Franklins Tale, and others are more liberal such as the marriages portrayed in the Millers and the Wife of Baths Tales. While several of these tales are rather comical, they do indeed give us a representation of the attitudes toward marriage at that time inRead MoreEssay about The Ideal of Marriage1238 Words   |  5 Pagesmeaning the wife and the husband are together and living happy in there married life, other married couples may tend to cheat and disrespect each other, meaning that the married couple are not together or are separated may be there opinion of the ideal marriage. In the medieval period Chaucer, writes to his audience the ideal of marriage in his stories. In Chaucers Canterbury Tales he explains the medieval way of a ideal marriage In The Wifes and Baths Tale and The Franklins Tale suggest thereRead More Chaucer Essay2650 Words   |  11 Pages Chaucers The Canterbury Tales demonstrate many different attitudes toward and perceptions of marriage. Some of these ideas are more liberal thought such as the marriages portrayed in the Wife of Bath, the Clerk’s and Merchant’s Tales. Then there are those tales that are very traditional, such as tha t discussed in the Franklins and the Squire’s tales. And lastly there is a tales of that of the Friar and the Summoner which aren’t really involved with marriage but are in the middle of the marriageRead MoreFigurative Language and the Canterbury Tales13472 Words   |  54 Pages1. allegory: a literary work that has a second meaning beneath the surface, often relating to a fixed, corresponding idea or moral principle. 2. alliteration: repetition of initial consonant sounds. It serves to please the ear and bind verses together, to make lines more memorable, and for humorous effect. †¢ Already American vessels had been searched, seized, and sunk. -John F. Kennedy †¢ I should like to hear him fly with the high fields/ And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless