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The Unreliability of Multiple Narrative Voices in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Wife of Bath

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There is no question that Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales was written to give artistic meaning to issues that Chaucer believed extremely relevant during the 13th century. The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale demonstrate Chaucer's ability to create a controversial, witty, and stimulating character that also happens to be a woman. The Wife is one of only three female storytellers in the Canterbury Tales, and she makes sure to leave a mark. With her witty commentary and ability to control men through sex in order to get what she wants, she creates a very comic, yet realistic tale. The Wife demonstrates early ideas of feministic thought. Her prologue is significantly longer than her tale and much longer than any of the other pilgrims that Chaucer introduces. By giving the Wife such a detailed and thought provoking tale, Chaucer is giving the Wife more power than the other pilgrims. Her prologue leads readers to believe that she a woman that abuses the sacrament of marriage and simply uses men at her leisure. Her tale on the other hand, displays a softer side showing readers that she does in fact have morals regarding love. One cannot ignore how the Wife is actually able to manipulate these men. By relying on men to provide her money and quick marriages, she is proving that her quest to create her own destiny is distorted by her own false reality. Emulating the men in order to get what she truly desires, can be compared to how men like those in the Canterbury Tales, used power and manipulation to get what they truly desire. Though this ability this emulation of men is what makes the voice of the Wife unreliable. Being openly honest about her intentions, beliefs and unafraid to speak her mind, she is able to defend her position as a woman and the positions of other women, yet the actual author of the tale, Geoffrey Chaucer includes elements in both the tale and prologue that force readers to question the reliability of the Wife. Though in the prologue the Wife is aggressive towards the men, she changes tones and becomes more gentle and passive in her actual tale. By changing her narrative voice Chaucer is giving readers the choice to decided whether or not the Wife is an aggressive feminist or a tired, scorned, old woman looking for the true meaning of love. In order to fully understand Chaucer's reasoning for changing the Wife's narrative voice, it's important to recognize the society in which the Wife's character was developed. In her article, Discourse and Dominion in Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Prologue, Alexandra Losonti, discusses the Middle Ages and how women during this time were treated. She says, "Throughout the Mi

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