Sex in The Canterbury Tales Essay - 937 Words

Geoffrey Chaucer uses sex as a manipulative instrument in The Canterbury Tales. Portraying sex as a power that women exert over men rather than the marital bond of â€Å"making love† makes evident Chaucer’s skewed views of love and marriage with underlying tones of misogyny. He expresses these views throughout the work, however, the theme of love and sex is most evident in the sub-stories of The Wife of Bath and The Miller’s Tale. Chaucer breaks the topic of sex into two basic parts: carnality and romanticism. Although carnal love is a controversial topic, Chaucer dives into the subject by creating characters with ferocious appetites for sex and the means to accommodate their desires. Whereas, to address romanticism, he relies heavily on†¦show more content†¦Her views intensify both when she states that God gave the poor the gift of sex to use as means for gaining riches and when she expresses that genitals are â€Å"wise and perfect†; they are not simply made for reproduction â€Å"they were not made for nothing, safe to say† (Chaucer). Her topic of discussion swiftly shifts off of the topic of her views on sex to the topic of a man’s roll in marriage. She begins by comparing the wife to a debtor and the husband her slave, then stating that she will have unlimited power over his body during their marriage. The wife continues on with details of her five marriages to say that she previously had three unfit husbands and two fit husbands. Focusing less time telling about the unfit, she simply focuses her tale to tell of how she believes one should go about marriage- much like a business transaction. â€Å"By accepting the reduction of female sexuality to an instrument of manipulation, control and punishment† the wife gets what she wants through withholding sex. (Aers 148). The wife’s character in The Wife of Bath ultimately argues for Chaucer’s skewed representation of love, sex and marriage as seen in the Canterbury Tales. The manifestation of Chaucer’s perceptions lie in the actual tale as well as the prologue of The Wife of Bath when power is no more than momentarily relinquished to a man non-consensually through rape. Power is hastily regained by women when the rapist’s fate is putShow MoreRelated Character Analysis of The Wife of Bath of Chaucers Canterbury Tales1623 Words   |  7 Pages Character Analysis of The Wife of Bath of Chaucers Canterbury Tales The Canterbury Tales is Geoffrey Chaucers greatest and most memorable work. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses a fictitious pilgrimage [to Canterbury] as a framing device for a number of stories (Norton 79). In The General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer describes in detail the pilgrims he meets in the inn on their way to Canterbury. Chaucer is the author, but also a character and the narrator, and acts likeRead MoreGeoffrey Chaucer s Impact On Literature1231 Words   |  5 PagesWestminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner. In Chaucer’s life he wrote over 500 works of literature, which includes The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women and Troilus and Criseyde. Chaucer’s best known work is The Canterbury Tales. 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