THE CHESTER PLAYS´ NOAH VS.

THE BIBLE´S NOAH

Summary and Wife´s problem

Comparing the story of Noah’s ark in the Bible and the Chester’s play of Noah’s flood, the most
different part between them must be the character of Noah’s wife. In the bible, there is no any
description about Noah’s wife, but in this play, Noah’s wife is an important character who makes
the play more interesting. In the Chester’s play, she is a very bad-tempered woman, and it seems
that she thinks her friends are more important than her family. She would rather stay with her
friends than go with her family. She thinks her friends love her more and she is the only person
who can save them. Bot Noah cannot leave his wife alone, so he asks his sons to drag his wife
into the ark. When his wife gets into the boat, something interesting happened. Noah’s wife
seems to be very unhappy to get on the boat and hits Noah. Noah is not angry, he just says, “it
is good to be still.” It means he had better keep silent. Here, it seems that Noah is a henpecked
husband; however, he is not really so coward.

Women were always belittled in the Middle Ages. The idea is also shown in this play. It is obvious
that she is a very insensible and unwise woman although she seems more powerful than Noah.
However, even though Noah’s wife shows the terrible image of a woman, she still plays an
important part in this play because she offers the function of entertainment. Actually, she was
very popular in that times.

Information and analysis.

 Noah exemplifies a number of symbols and metaphors:

o The Flood itself can be seen as prefiguring both Christ's Baptism and the
destruction of the world by God at the Last Judgment.

 "The story of Noah is thus both a continuation of the Fall of Man and a
prelude to the coming of Christ" (Bevington, 290).

o Noah is a type of Adam: both are acting on specific orders from God but are
then deterred from their duty by disobedient wives. Noah, however, does not
give in to his wife whereas Adam does.

o Noah is also a type of Christ, saving true believers from destruction.

o Mrs. Noah is a type of Eve and also represents the sinners who refuse to follow
Christ.

o Mrs. Noah = Lilith

o The Ark is the true church of believers, saved from destruction.

 The argument between Noah and his wife does not appear in Genesis. It is a medieval
tradition related to fabliaux, such as The Miller´s Tales.

o The Shrewish Wife was a motif common to classical drama and native British
literature drama.
  The English version of the shrewish wife appears in early drama as
"Mrs. Noah," who refuses to board the ark with her husband in order
to stay with her friends.

 In the Tudor period, dramatic interludes and farces relied for comic
effect on the stock character of the "violent, intractable, sharp-
tongued" wives who cuckold husbands and order them around.

 By Queen Elizabeth's reign, plays, which often relied on classical

sources such as Plautus and Terence, had adapted classical shrews to
English styles.

 The building of a prefabricated ark in front of the audience and the use of animal
pictures on cards to symbolize the beast boarding the ark are examples of special
effects in medieval drama that would have added to the audience's enjoyment of the
play.

NOAH IN THE BIBLE

God noticed that the human beings had evil in their hearts, so he decided to eliminate
everything, even animals, from the world because he regretted having created them. However,
God offered mercy to Noah and God gave him an oath.

Noah was a good man and he had three sons, Sem, Cam and Japhet. God told Noah that the
world had been corrupted and he would eliminate everything from the earth except Noah and
his family. God told him to build an arc for his family and for a every animal and plant that
existed, so they could survive after the flood. Noah did as God told him.

God told him to take seven couples of pure animals and one of impure animals. Noah took his
family and entered in the arc with all the animals. Seven days after all the animals were gathered
together in the arc and the flood started, then God closed the arc after Noe entered. The flood
lasted forty days forty nights. Every live upon earth was eliminated.

The flood stopped, and God send wind, so the water could be removed. Noah sent a raven and
never came back, then a dove and it came back with nothing. One week later he sent another
dove and it came back with a branch of an olive. It took many months to remove completely the
water from the earth.

God told them to go outside of the arc with the animals and Noah sacrificed some of them for
God and God swore not to destroy the world again. He stablished and oath by creating the
rainbow.