PROLOGUE

Satiric approach where he exaggerates and make fun, saying something while meaning
the opposite.
Horatian gentle satire, just to make fun, not to offend.
Juvenalian satire, brutal satire.
Chaucer agenda: Concern about religious hipocresy, relationship between men and
women.
Aristotelian pyramid, from less value of women, then in the upper level the men and in
the top the gods. Men run the world and tell women what to do, that´s the “natural”.
Trying to make men equal to women would be unnatural. The church held the same
view.
Men have an obligation to inflict pain on women with a stick if they didn´t do what men
wanted. In houses should be a stick with its circumference no larger that the thick of the
thumb of the man of the house.
Another greek term for man is “patro-familis” , representing the patriarchal view.
People who challenge the patriarchy, are feminists. Going against that is going against
gods, is heresy. Chaucer has issues with this view, questioning the fact that this rule is
natural. He creates major controversy with his character of the wife of Bath
Bath is a city in England.
Wife of Bath will stand up and introduce herself in her own prologue. The pages that
precede her tale, there is no prologue and that is very controversial. Because he creates a
character who stands up in front of men and says the following.
She says: let me telle you about myself,. Sehe has been married 5 times, one thing she
knows is that marriage is to live in misery.
She can´t hardly wait to have his 6th man. She wants a man that will be both her debtor
and her slave, bearing his pain until death. She not only speaks in front of man, but she
also discuss with them in public,
She first wants to make sure that she doesn´t mean to upset anyone, Chaucer says that
because he is being an iconoclast.
Iconoclast is to go against sacred views. Through the wife of Bath, Chaucer will become
a great iconoclast of the patriarchy. She says her idea about men and women, and how
she controls men. She goes on and on in the long prologue.
“let´s talk about sex” women love sex but they have to pretend as they don´t.
She says radical things.
“let me tell you how i use to control my men” her men were always trying to control
her, but there wasn´t a way because for her, women are way more intelligent that men.
The wife of Bath thinks that through sex women control men. She knew her man was
with another woman, she goes outside with a sext outfit to have fun, she sends her back,
she doesn´t obey. She knew he was going to go after her. She came early in the morning,
she goes into the house, he is with a stick, she says “im so glad you are here”, she says
that she felt bad, she came back but he wasn´t there, she went looking for him, she says
“i thought this relation was built on trust”.
She manipulates men, the language “I built him a cross out of the same wood he would
use to crucify me on, she outsmarted him. In Chaucer´s day you kept your money in a
safe with only one key, the man controlled the money, she says “by the way, how come
she can´t have the key to the safe because it´s a fair question. Chaucer brings up the
issue of which one has to control the money.
If he is the smarter and that´s way he controls money, she should control it.
Wife of Bath is radical in presentation of opinions. Women have a voice
She says that she made a mistake because she married for looks instead of for money,
that was a mistake. He was young, good looking, and he tried to control him. He was
abusive and hit her. She said his husband had a book that he liked to read, this books
told stories about all the terrible things women did to men. In Roman times, a guy had a
large plantation with a tree, and the guy was sad because all his 3 wifes hanged
themselves from that tree, his friend asked for a branch of that tree for the same thing to
happen to him.
He read stories like that one, and the storie of Eve and how she is the reason why all sin
came into the world because she ate from that tree in the garde of Eden. The wif makes
a point saying that, of course Eve is going to be blamed. Because men wrote the book,
have a woman wrote the storie, the storie would be different. If a woman had written it
probably a man would be guilty. Women get blamed because men write the books.
One night she says i had enough of him, he is there, drunk, reading the book, she
grabbed the book, teared out several pages, throwed the book, he falled back into the
fire, he got on fire, he stands up inraged, he hit her, and thats why she is deaf from one
ear. She fall, he thought she is going to die, and in that moment she knew she had him,
she pretended that she was dying. She said that she knew she was dying , and she asked
for a kiss, when she reached down for her for a kiss, she hit him as a payback. He asked
are you going to die or not.Finnally he “handed over the bridle reins to me” that is to
say he let her be the leader, and the only thing he said was “go wherever you want Alice
just remember you are my wife”, the she says “you can beat a girl, you can beat a
woman, you can be mean, make her afraid of you but she will never love you, the only
way for that to happen is to give her, if he gives her freedom to do whatever she wants.
You have a choice, you can scare a girl to obey you, but she will never love yoi, if you
want to be loved, the only way is to give her total freedom.The guy had a nasty choice,
you can dominate her, but you won´t be loved or you can say do whatever you want I
trust you, that is the only way to love you. She says Oh yeah i was going to tell a story.
Finally she remembers that she was going to tell a story, the pardner says really you are
going to tell the story noW? You talk a lot. The friar says, why don´t you shut up and let
her tell her story. The pardner says you are attacking me?Friar and partdner get ready to
fight, the friar says he can come up with a story about a partner, to which the partner
says he can come up with a story about a friar. The friar tells a story about a partner.
The wife gets the chance to tell the story.

TALE

In her tale she supports the idea that in marriage wife´s and husband´s should be equal.

One of the earliest feminiest thinkers. Feminist means the attack on the patriarchy,
attack on the idea that women should be subserviant to men.
The key for a guy who wants a girl to love him, is trust.
Little introduction, nasty things about pardoner.
A knight in older days “steals the maiden hat” of a lady, he rapes it, and in the process
he violates the girl and the code of the knights. He is brought in front of the king and
queen , he faces a trial ehn he is probably going to get executed.
The queen says he is too handsome to cut huis head, instead they give him a challenge
that would take a year and a day. What will that challenge be, is the heart of the story.

In older days there use to be ferries, but now we have friars, who like to go around
blessing everything even houses.
Friar and the wife had an arguement and now she attacks even more.
Today friars are everywhere (they hide under the bushes, by the side of the road, etc)and
they are always there for you and if they can´t take care they will take advantage (sex),