I.From the beginning of her story, the Wife of Bath speaks with such clear understanding of the concepts of marriage, religion, chastity and virginity (or lack, thereof) and the interdependence they have to each other that it is clear she speaks from experience. That she had five husbands and is openly pursuing a sixth, shows that “she knew of the remedies of love…that art’s old dance” (Chaucer 25).
The reader learns not only her feelings on these subjects but also her steadfast pursuit to, essentially, take her men for all that they are worth. The first three husbands of the Wife of Bath, the reader learns, “were good, and rich and old.” Clearly, once two people are wed in marriage, sexual relations become a regular part of the equation, but the Wife of Bath is complaining more about their failure as husbands expressly because of their inability to perform up to the wife’s sexual standards. While this may seem like a standard complaint after marriage, the reader soon learns one of the wife’s principle rules:
“A wise woman will concentrate on getting
That love which she doesn’t possess;
But since I had them wholly in my hand,
And since they had given me all their land,
Why should I take pains to please them,
Unless it should be for my own profit and pleasure?” (Chaucer 191-3).
Five husbands takes some toll on a woman, it would seem. Yet this does not stop the wife’s further with continuing her autobiography. Her story than takes us from a knight that raped a young maiden, to an old women that becomes his future wife.
The Term Paper on Young Woman Marriage Wife God
How to Have A Joyous Marriage! by Roderick C. Meredith Here are 'keys' to help make your marriage special! These insights and tested principles will help you build your marriage into a precious relationship of joy and beauty. HIM 4 Edition 1. 3, May 1996 This booklet is not to be sold! It has been provided as a free public educational service by the Global Church of God (c) 1993 GLOBAL CHURCH OF ...
II.The importance of storytelling is significant as a part of the fisherman’s life in
The Arabian Nights, just as much as fishing or his family would be. This clearly shows the power of magic or magical realism in these stories. These stories, it must be remembered, are nothing more than stories. Their existence is in the scope and breadth of the detail with which Shahrazad tells them. The happenings of the story, therefore, no longer need to rely on the modern conventions of logic, but rather on the unwritten rules of life, from the perspective of ancient Arabians.
The old fisherman, who remains unnamed throughout the story, is reliant on the verses that he recites to describe his emotions and the path that his life is taking, steadily out of his control. The jar from which the demon escapes proves to be a far greater problem for him as the demon has pronounced the fisherman’s death sentence upon his exit from the jar. “Whoever delivers me from now on, I will either put him to the worst of deaths or let him choose for himself the manner of death (Mahdi 34).
The fisherman then, uses his cunning to end his troubles by tricking the demon back into the jar and then telling him the Tale of King Yunan and the Sage Duban and the tale of the Husband and the Parrot. The moral of these stories teaches the demon the error of his ways and how human beings can use reason to overcome even the greatest of evils.
Stories are inextricably linked to Chauntecleer, as well, even though he is only a chicken. To clarify, Chauntecleer is actually a cock, the best cock, in fact, which crows for a widow who lives simply beside a grove in a valley. Being the best cock around, he has many wives (or rather, hens).
His relationship with his wives, especially his dearest wife, Pertelote, leads him to tell the story of his dream, or rather, his nightmare. His dream, involving his own death, frightens him, propelling Pertelote to declare him a coward. Storytelling, for both of these characters, is literally a matter of life or death. In the end, though, it is clear for both of these characters in both of these stories, “that all that is written is certainly written for our learning” (Chaucer 413).
The Essay on Life After Death 6
The Afterlife is an area of human consciousness we all enter upon leaving the physical world at physical death. Throughout history we've questioned if there is a life after death. Along the way, our religions and various philosophers offered beliefs and opinions to answer this commonly asked question. However, many of the answers contradict each other making it hard to figure out. "Belief in life ...
These stories dictate that regardless of whether you believe in Jesus Christ or Allah or anything, for that matter, god works in mysterious ways and you must keep your eyes and ears open for it.
III. Female characters, in this writer’s opinion, are significantly multi-faceted throughout these stories, at least as much, if not more, than their male counterparts. Their presence in a male-dominated world is tragically ironic because of their qualities, abilities, and talents. Both eastern and western literature, in these two books, shows that women are just as smart, resourceful, and necessary in this world as men are, albeit in different ways. Female portrayals in the Canterbury Tales and the Arabian Nights reflect not only stereotypical views of females, but also just how devoid and lonely (and boring) this world would be without them. Shahrazad and Pertelote show both positive and negative aspects of women in these stories, as do the Wife of Bath and the old lady in the wife’s tale.
King Shahrayar has an opinion on women directly resulting from his own wife’s infidelity. This would upset most men, but it probably would not lead them to daily marriage, honeymoon, and murder of their spouse. Shahrazad and Dinarzad, two enterprising young sisters of the time, show that women are complex people, capable of doing much more than that which men give them as their lot. These two, as well as the old women in the wife’s tale, prove that women are not all as conniving or deceiving as the Wife of Bath seems to be. These stories attempt to show that women are either evil or good, but they teach us that women are human beings, who are capable of living their lives how they want, allowing them to use their womanly ways for either good or evil, or for many women, both.
Works Cited
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. New York: Bantam, 1964.
Mahdi, Muhsin. The Arabian Nights. Trans. Husain Haddawy. New York: Norton, 1990.
