Women in "The Canterbury Tales"

Paper Summary:

Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales" is about a group of pilgrims traveling together to Canterbury, and along the way, they tell one another stories to pass the time. One of the persistent images in these stories is the image of women, which varies from the submissive to the more aggressive and which is found in both the pilgrims and their stories. This paper examines how this image appears in "The Canterbury Tales", focusing on "The Franklin's Tale", but touching on some of the others too.

From the Paper:

"The various contrivances in this story mean it is not at all realistic and is told to serve as a criticism and challenge to the Wife of Bath and the Clerk concerning their ideas on marriage. The courtly love tradition also takes a beating in this story, for Aurelius is the prime example of that tradition and fails to live up to it, while also showing how foolish it is because there is no end to it, meaning without achieving love, the lover merely languishes forever. The knight in particular is simply too good and too noble to be true, as is made quite apparent when he agrees to let his wife sleep with another man to protect her honor, something of a contradiction in itself."

More papers on Women in "The Canterbury Tales":

• Book Review # 113430 : "Women in "The Canterbury Tales"
• Analytical Essay # 21300 : "Women in the "Canterbury Tales"
• Analytical Essay # 117264 : "Marriage in the "Canterbury Tales"

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