Geoffrey Chaucer s Bath And The Miller s Tale Essay

Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of The Canterbury Tales, writes these stories to express a variety of themes and lessons. One of these themes is the fidelity or loyalty in marriages during the late thirteen hundreds. Chaucer uses a collection of pilgrims and their tales to portray the main types of marriage during this time. These views are narrowed down to three main types and they are the feminine view, the courtly view, and the common or fabliaux view. These main types are seen in The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale, The Franklin’s Tale, and The Miller’s Tale. During this time period, a few women had a very feminist view on the idea of marriage. This is the idea that women should have freedom in the marriage and be able to do the same things in the community as her husband. This also means that in the context of the marriage, the wife should be the most powerful and have control over her husband. This was especially expressed from the Wife of Bath as she speaks of her views in her prologue and her tale. In the Wife of Bath’s prologue, she tells that she has had four husbands before the one she has now and that she is not ashamed of her lack of virginity even as some of the community members look down on her. She doesn’t think it’s fair that â€Å"if a woman has more than one husband in her lifetime, she is frowned upon, but it is acceptable for men to remarry several times† (Marcotte). The Wife of Bath wants to have equality as a female in the social aspects of her marriage.Show MoreRelatedGeoffrey Chaucer s Impact On Literature1231 Words   |  5 PagesGeoffrey Chaucer’s Impact on Literature: English poet Geoffrey Chaucer is acclaimed to be one of the best and most influential poets in history. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote several famous literary works in what is called middle English. Geoffrey Chaucer was born in 1340 in London, England. 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