Attitudes In The Canterbury Tales

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Change in Attitudes (An evaluation on Chaucer and the ideas presented in different Tales through the use of satire.) Everyday there are problems in the world that need to be addressed. There are different ways that the problems are addressed. There are those people who will come out and declare the problems. While for some this is effective, for most it is a statement that will eventually be ignored. When disputes are thrown out into the world people make a choice. They can choose accept it or they will believe the person presenting the information is crazy. Chaucer found another way to show the world that there was something wrong in their world. He made the citizens of his time think for themselves. He created stories that were automatically…show more content…
The actual tale the wife presents to the people in the line show the true meaning of classification of genders. Males are meant to be placed higher than woman, at least in Aristotelian logic. Men have more strength and provide for their family. However, woman were searching for a way to show they held strengths also. “As for the Wife of Bath herself, her own experience must have made her aware of the limitations of her search for sovereignty, for it could never allow her to gain maistrye over time and old age. Despite her lusty, and optimistic, 'welcome the sixte' husband as she set out to Canterbury, a sadder and more resigned realization must also reside behind her motives for going on pilgrimage.” (Ireland) The Wife of Bath tried her best to overpower men and in many cases she did. Chaucer chooses to write a story with a twist. He changes the satire of the solution. He could have told the directly to change, but that would have gone against the code of the land at the time. Instead, he made a story of a women fighting. “Both the public world of storytelling and the story itself are by definition male-dominated, and the Wife, as we know, has strong feelings about that. Combative and competitive as ever, she takes an aggressively feminist public position in structuring the world of the Tale and pointing its moral. She may be said to womanhandle the traditional story” (Leicester) The story many people knew was changed and in the process it created a world that started to change. It introduced the idea that women have ideas and worth. “Over her husband as over her lover, and master him; he must not be above her.” (Wife’s Tale) The wife proved that men could be submissive to women. Woman have worth and it was shown through the teachings of
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