Critique of Chaucer’s Attack on the Patriarchy and Class Discrimination (An Understanding of Chaucer’s Attack on the Patriarchy and Class Discrimination) In the day of Geoffrey Chaucer, there was a set philosophy known as the Patriarchy. Also, there was a division of the classes, such as: the poor people, who couldn’t afford a simple meal; the middle class, who had a way of making ends meet, but only to a certain extent, and the upper lords and kings, who were seen as better than the people previously stated.
Again, in “Canterbury Tales,” Chaucer created a woman, known as the wife of bath, who explicates the details about her own life, along with a long winded story. Firstly, within the story she relays, the knight must marry an elder woman, for she had saved his life. The woman hates the idea of the knight being so arrogant about his stature, and she attacks his nobility. Also, the wife of bath critiques the way the knight profiles the woman by her poverty. Lastly, the old woman has a brief statement about what the knight says about her age and looks.
After the woman obliterates every detail about the knight, she gives him a choice, which was to have her ugly and the most loyal and friendly spouse known to man, or have her young and gorgeous, but not faithful and unloving. There are a three main ways that Chaucer attacks the patriarchy and the division of social class. To begin, Chaucer attacks the division of social classes by using the old lady in, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” to critique the knight’s arrogance. This section of the tale is by far the greatest in length, and also has the most detail.
While the woman gave the knight his life back, by providing him with the answer to the question of what all women want, he hates what she demanded of him. Although they were spontaneously married, the woman still believed that she needed to be treated with dignity and respect. Within, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” the old woman states, “Such as descends from ancient wealth and worth. If that’s the claim you make for gentlemen such arrogance is hardly worth a hen. Whoever loves to work for virtuous ends, public and private, and who most intends to do what deeds of gentleness he cam, take him to be the greatest gentleman. (Lines 256-262)
By tearing these lines apart piece by piece, the reader can infer a couple of things. One, being wealthy is supposed to mean that the person is a gentleman by nature, however the woman believes this is not the case. Two, a gentleman is someone who does the deeds without the necessity of recognition for them. Someone who gives everything they have to helping others, and caring for people who need the help, and working towards the betterment of others, that is what makes a true gentleman. Being born into a family name means nothing in comparison to arrogance, or gentleness.
As explicated by William Wordsworth, author of Tintern Abbey, “And passing even into my purer mind with tranquil restoration:—feelings too of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, as have no slight or trivial influence on that best portion of a good man’s life, his little, nameless, unremembered, acts of kindness and of love. ” (Lines 30-36 of Tintern Abbey) This excerpt from Wordsworth’s poem depicts the things that are most remembered in life. Not always the monstrous givings of kindness, but simply from the nameless acts.
Secondly, as explicated by the woman in, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” the neglect of the poor is a very inhumane act of selfishness. As a poor woman, she depicts a scenario within the reader’s mind, which shows the differences between being materially rich, and being rich with goodwill. The social class is something that a person was born into, not only does it separate the wealth, but it separates the respect from human to human. As Henry David Thoreau put it in chapter two of, Walden, “for a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone. In the story the wife of bath tells, the old woman does an exemplary job of explicating the meaning of this quotation. It means, that the man who can learn to live off of the bare minimum, is truly rich, for they are the ones who are at peace with their life. Also, it describes that the rich are not truly rich, for they are the ones who are never satisfied.
As the old woman stated, “He who accepts his poverty unhurt, I’d say is rich although he lacked a shirt. But the truly poor are they who whine and fret and covet what they cannot hope to get. (Lines 331-334) These lines explicate a deeper meaning than what is first seen. They show that while a person may be dirt-floor poor, they can be the jolliest and marry people in all the land. Also, the people who are truly poor are the people who degrade the poor because they are seen as lesser. People who are rich in material values, may never truly be rich, for they don’t understand the meanings of being content with just the necessities. Lastly, the woman in, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” uses a very minimal, however powerful, section to attack the knight’s disgust with the woman’s age and looks.
As noticed in the story that the wife of bath relays, the night committed the rape of a young maiden by the river. He was to be executed if he could not answer the queen’s demands, which were, “Find what it is most that women want in the world. ” For a full year and a day, he was running rampant, in vigorous search for the answer. On the last day, he walked by an old woman, the one who soon would be his wife, who told him the secret to a woman’s happiness, and saved his life in doing so.
While the old lady was attacking the knight about how he views her, she explicated to him how she saved his life, and how he should be grateful to her for doing what she did for him. Also, she attacks his morality, again, by telling him that gentlemen should engage in honor, with respect to old age. The old woman ends her rant by stating that she will give the knight a choice: either take her how she is, but having her be the most loyal and loving spouse, or take her as young, gorgeous woman, who is less than loyal.
He debates on his choices for a long period of time, when he finally broke down and told the woman that he couldn’t decide, and he gave her the choice to make herself. When he realized that he had given her the freedom that women want, he realized that he got the best of both options. As J. Cole stated in his song “Crooked Smile, “Is it real? if it’s not, girl you don’t care because what’s real, is something that the eyes can’t see, that the hands can’t touch, that them broads can’t be, and that’s you, never let ’em see you frown, and if you need a friend to pick you up, I’ll be around.
Mr. Cole does an excellent job of explicating exactly what the old woman is trying to make the knight understand: what is true about yourself is what is in your heart, and being a beautiful person on the inside, is far more important than having beauteous looks. Geoffrey Chaucer attacks the patriarchy, and the division of social classes, in three major ways. Firstly, he uses the old woman in “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” to break down the knight, by attacking his noble stature. Secondly, again Chaucer uses the old woman to degrade the knight by using her poverty, and his riches, against him.
Lastly, the old woman critiques the knight about how poorly his treatment of her is, because of her age, and his neglect towards her for her being “hideous. ” Chaucer created a very intricate system while writing “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” because of his usage of the wife of bath, who speaks the words of the old woman in the tale, to attack the patriarchy. He knew that if the attack came directly for him, he would be branded an atheist, for his challenge of Aristotle’s theory of the patriarchy, which is seen as normality. By using the three mouthpieces, he avoided the danger of being attacked himself, while still getting his point across.
