Having read the assignment at http://www.canterburytales.org/ and navigated your way to the modern version of chapter 31, The Wife of Bath's Tale, please respond to one of the following prompts:
1. In lines 1-21, the Wife talks about how supposedly there used to be lots of fairies, but no one sees them anymore, maybe because there are so many religious types (monks, friars) moving around everywhere blessing everything. What impression of the Wife's character do you get from this introduction?
2. Can you see a connection between lines 1-21, and the story itself, which really begins at line 26?
3. Who can summarize the plot of lines 26-68? Once someone has summarized the plot, feel free to offer respectful suggestions for making it more accurate.
4. Queen Guinevere and her attendant ladies ask Arthur not to put the knight to death. What might be their motivation?
1. In lines 1-21, the Wife talks about how supposedly there used to be lots of fairies, but no one sees them anymore, maybe because there are so many religious types (monks, friars) moving around everywhere blessing everything. What impression of the Wife's character do you get from this introduction?
2. Can you see a connection between lines 1-21, and the story itself, which really begins at line 26?
3. Who can summarize the plot of lines 26-68? Once someone has summarized the plot, feel free to offer respectful suggestions for making it more accurate.
4. Queen Guinevere and her attendant ladies ask Arthur not to put the knight to death. What might be their motivation?
29 comments:
Focusing on prompts 1 and 3:
I've very interested by the cause and effect relationship the Wife suggests; the monks, friars, perhaps causing the disapearance of fairy sightings. The Wife describes the religious types as blessing "cities and towns and castle and high towers, manors and barns and stables . . . " I wonder if these things represent materialism of some kind that "infest each land," whereas the fairies represent, or are a symbol of nature. But, why is religion in relation to things that might be construed as materialistic?
Now - an attempt at a summary:
1. A bachelor comes along the river, and sees a maiden, all alone.
2. "Lusty," he rapes her (this section is a bit unclear to me )
3. It is agreed, even by the great King Arthur that this man should be killed, but the Queen asks him to let her handle it.
4. The Queen offers this knight a deal; if he can find out "what thing it is that women most desire," in a twelvemonth and a day he will be granted life.
5. He decides that this is his only chance, and seeks far and wide to find this answer, but is unsuccessful.
number 4
So, I'm not sure exactly why the queen decides to save the man, but after she asks him "what is it that women most desire". And if you does not know then she will set him free for a year and a day to "search and learn" for the answer.....maybe the queen "wants him" personally or as a slave/servant type of person....I'm still not sure if that is right.
i will post later on something else
number one
Wife's chacater....kind of skeptical, hopefulness, critical, although there is most likely truth in what she says...i very much agree with Jake on this one as well!!!!
It's Hunter.
Prompt 4:
I think the motivation of Queen Guineveere and her attendant ladies asking Arthur not to put the knight to death; and they instead ask them to find out, within a year, what women most desire, is that they want to see if he will turn his mistake around. From my understanding of what knights are supposed to do, they're supposed to be loyal and protect people. If that's what knights do, he totally went against that policy, so I think the women just wanted to see if he was a real knight.
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I think that the reason the ladies wanted to keep the knight was to show him a lesson so that maybe he could become a better person. The queen gave him a test, she asked him what it is that woman want most. The answer for this might help bennefit the knight in some way by showing him something about woman or whatever, but also if he got this right then the queen would know he is worth keeping alive.
Yeah I didn't really understand the reading at all so this is probably waaayyy off.
prompt 1:
I think that the wife is someone who cares a lot about nature and what surrounds her. (This might be very obvious...) I also think that she enjoyed the older world better than the newer one since she says that the monks and many other religious figures made the fairies disappear. "That do infest each land and every stream" This quotation is explaining the monks and religious figures and by using the word infest, it sounds negative to the person who is talking so she thinks that this is something bad.
I think Jake had the summary pretty much down. I do believe that he raped her, and he is sentenced death. But the quen makes him an offer but can't answer her question.
31 From whom, in spite of all she did and said,
32 Straightway by force he took her maidenhead;
33 For which violation was there such clamour,
I could not imagine these lines meaning anything other than rape or taking advantage of.
im going to do number one
The wife seems very hopefull ifeal. Because when i read the text the feeling i got from it was a longing of peace. Maybe to return to the day when there was faries and such. My overall impression of her was a nice and hopeful woman who wants things to return to normal, but also is very smart (agreeing with jake) because of her cause an effect relationship sceame she made.
prompt 1 for now-
She seams to be stating the good and bad things that happened as a result of monks coming and blessing everything. First she tells of how there once were fairies and things, which may mean she was attatched to them or is a woman of the past, but she goes on to tell of how women were able to walk wherever they wanted because the places were blessed.
-Rosamund
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prompt 1:
From the introduction i get the impression that the Wife character that she really enjoyed the old times when the fairies were still around and the elf-queen was happy. "All this wide land was land of fairy. The elf-queen, with her jolly company." (lines 3-4) This is here looking back when they were still around and happy. "This causes it that there are now no fairies. For where was wont to walk full many an elf." (line 16-17) This is when she is talking about what her world had become where the friars and monks caused the disappearance of the fairies because they bless everything which caused them to leave. I didnt really understand why? This is gave me an impression that she really cared about the fairies because they made her life and many other lives better and happier.
I dont know if you guys know that this is Alison yet but it is me! <3
. I coulnd't agree MORE when Alex Potts said
"to show him a lesson so that maybe he could become a better person. The queen gave him a test......" and so on.......YES, TOTALLY AGREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also, Rosamund, i agree with when she says
"She seams to be stating the good and bad things that happened as a result of monks coming and blessing everything"
YES, AGREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3.Maybe it is in my supposed child-like innocence that I interpreted this scene (lines 26-68) a bit differently than those who have gone before me. Here is my interpretation/understanding. (Feel free to correct me of course because I might very well be terribly wrong)
One of King Arthur's knights (who was a "lusty" man) was one day riding around the countryside (perhaps on business?) when he came across a young poverty-stricken girl among the corn fields. He took pity upon her, and found her to be quite beautiful so he decided to take her directly back to the court of King Arthur and ask permission to wed the lady. King Arthur was appalled at the uncleanliness of the lady whom the knight had chosen for his bride, but also found her admittedly beautiful. So he decided to put the knight to death so he could have the lady to himself. Many of the people in the court couldn't understand the reasoning of the king and begged him to save the knight. So he decided to leave it up to his queen to decide...realizing that he was being foolish and needed help. The queen then decided to figure out the worth of this young man by asking him to discover what it is that woman truly desire.
sorry I am posting two comments in a row...I made an error.
Now #1:
The wife of bath appears to be a woman of wisdom and hope... (as has been before mentioned)But also perhaps this woman is feeling despair, grief, loneliness, and remorse at the loss of the old, happy times. Also (this is more displayed in lines 21-68) I feel as though the woman has a bit the character of a common gossiper. If you pretend that you were watching an old movie while you read the story, and you pretend she is living in a world where everyone speaks in that form of english...she seems very much as if she would be someone who engages and gains pleasure from the habit of gossip. Just something to consider...
promt 1:
i get the impression that she is not very fond of these "religious types". i get this impression because she says that they are the reason there is no more fairies and elves. i am assuming that she likes the fairies and elves. she says that the monks and friars "infest" the land, which implies they are unwanted. this says a lot about her character because religion was very important then and it was dangerous to be disobedient to really anything.
I agree with Alex and Hunter.
Maybe the queen knew that he didnt really know and that it was unlikely that he would figure it out. If he is the kind of man who goes against his duty of protecting the people in such a awful way and violating a woman than it is doubtful that he will succeed. But I think she also wanted to give him a CHANCE to survive. She wanted to hope that he would change and become better, even though it wasnt probable.
Prompt #2
Well, in pages 1-21 the wife describes how the fairies could be seen, but the monks drove them away. If this was to be connected to the rest of the story I would say that maybe the fairies being driven away by the monks is similar to the fact that the man cannot see* or understand what it is women want. He is unable, although he looks all over, to find this desire similar to the way that the monks and friars spread all over and drove away the fairies.
Now I know that the fairies and desire are different things, but when the fairies were described as "dancing" and jolly folk, maybe it plays into that women at the time just want a supreme bliss, some sort of eternal happiness such that the fairies had. And to coincide why the man has to find it, by raping the maiden he took away her happiness.
Prompt no. 4:
I was immediately unclear as to this very question. Why do the queen and her attendants rush in to save this "lusty" knight. I felt this most immediately because the very people that are saving the convicted rapist are women! Shouldn't they be siding with the woman in the situation? The only way I can rationalize this phenomenon is by concluding that they - the court women, and the queen - just want to toy with the knight. They want to torture him in a way. The question she asks is a form of torture. The knight only wants women for, ya know... Why would he even think about what they want? It is kind of comic in a way.
Thanks!
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just checking in....oh and by the way...I have figured out that I was wrong....and everyone else was right. She was raped. The knight is being punished for that. Those are facts. I messed it up. I am sorry.
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This is Sofia
As for, Queen Guinevere and her attendant ladies asking Arthur not to put the knight to death (Prompt 4), I'm stuck between two thoughts after reading the blog posts. Everyone is throwing their thoughts out their so well and backing it up with evidence that I'm torn between two ideas, and those are, 1.)that the Queen and her attendants actually do want to help the man, and 2.) that they really want to actually torture him, like Matthew brought up. In the text, the Queen says to the man:
"38 But that the other ladies and the queen
39 So long prayed of the king to show him grace"
and
" 46 You stand yet, said she, in such poor a way
47 That for your life you've no security.
48 I'll grant you life if you can tell to me
49 What thing it is that women most desire. "
When I read this, it makes me feel like she actually wants to help him. She begged the king to sacrifice the man's life, and she seems to be pitying him and truely wants to help him.
I can see, though, where Matthew is coming from, especially:
" 57 Grieved was this knight, and sorrowfully he sighed;"
He doesn't exactly seem to be relieved that the Queen saved his life, he rather seems slightly annoyed that this task was given to him.
Sorry, I just wanted to sum up my thoughts by saying that I think that the Queen actually does want to help the man, but I guess we'll just have to see!
i also i think that the woman is hopeful because the mood coming from the first 21 lines is reminicing because she wants the faeries back and everything else back before all of this stuff started
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i agree with rosamund.
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I agree with matt...I think they just want to make him think they care. At first I thought the same thing like...wow what are they doing?? But than I relized they just wanna put him through some torture. I do also agree with hunter that like they wanted him to turn around...
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I agree with the average plot summary here. Pretty straight forward.
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