The Wife Of Bath

This paper reviews the film "What Women Want" and in particular looks at why society imparts so many gender roles on men and women. It examines how the film is not a film about an attractive throwback to the Stone Age, but how it certainly portrays what a large group of men still believe about women, even today when there is supposed to be more "equality" between the sexes. It evaluates how MelGibson's over the top caricature of the hopelessly chauvinistic male at the beginning of the film is not actually as far-fetched as it might seem, which makes it all the more appalling. Today, many men still see women only as sex objects and even the most liberated man still believes he should head up the household and bring home the major portion of the bacon.

The Wife of Bath's Tale
The Wifeof Bath's Tale tells a story from a distant time, when King Arthur ruled the nation and when elves used to run around impregnating women. However, the Wife immediately digresses: now friars have taken the place of elves - they are now the copulating, evil spirits.
King Arthur had a knight who, when riding home one day from hawking, found a maiden walking alone and raped her. This crime usuallyheld the penalty of death, but, in court, the queen intervened and begged her husband to spare the knight, promising the knight that she would grant his life if he could answer the question "What do women most desire?" She gave him one year to find the answer.
The knight went on a journey but could find no satisfactory answer; some said wealth, others jollity, some status, others a good lover inbed. Despondent that he might not find his answer, the knight was mournful, when, riding beside a forest on his way back to his home, he saw a dance of twenty-four ladies. Approaching them, they vanished, and in their place, the knight found a hideous old woman, the “lothly lady”, to whom he put his question. She agreed to give the answer and assured him that it was the right one, but would onlytell him the answer if he would do the next thing that she required of him. When the knight agreed, she whispered in his ear.
When they arrived at court, the knight faced the queen again, and told him that women desired to have sovereignty and “to been in maistrie” (to be in mastery) above their husbands. The lothly lady then spoke up before the court, announcing the knight’s pledge, and askinghim to take her for his wife. The knight, although now pardoned, was miserable that he had to marry such an old crone, but there was no way for him to get out of it.
Privately, the knight wedded the lothly lady the next day, and the two of them lay in bed. She realized his unhappiness, and confronted him about it. He criticized her for not only being old and ugly, but low-born. She scoffed at hissnobbery as a definition and defended her poverty as irrelevant to God. She then gave him a choice, making him see both sides of the argument. Either he could have her as an old and ugly wife who would be entirely faithful to him; or he could have her as a young and fair wife, who would probably cuckold him.
The knight sighed sorely, and thought, but finally told his wife to choose herselfwhichever option would bring most honor to the two of them. “Thanne have I gete of yow maistrie” (In that case, I’ve got mastery over you) she said – and the knight agreed that she had. The lothly lady asked him to kiss her and “cast up the curtyn” (lift up the curtain) to look on her face – she had transformed into a young and beautiful woman. They lived happily ever after: and, the Wife concludes,let Christ grant all women submissive husbands who sexually satisfy their wives, and let Christ kill all men who will not be governed by their wives.
Analysis
The Wife of Bath is one of Chaucer’s most enduring characters, and rightly, one of the most famous of any of the Canterbury pilgrims. Her voice is extremely distinctive – loud, self-promoting, extremely aggressive – and her lengthy...