Women in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

Résumé du document

In The Canterbury Tales, women appear either as storytellers or as part of the tales themselves. We must therefore make a clear distinction between the women of the pilgrimage and the characters mentioned in the tales. The former are supposed to belong to the real life, if we agree to play the game proposed by Chaucer, whereas the latter obviously belong to myths and to the pilgrims' imagination. It does not mean that the women mentioned in the tales don't exist at all, but rather that they embody different aspects and characters of women in general. They may have existed, but that their story is somehow distorted by subjective narrators. In the same way, we know that there are neither pilgrimages, nor pilgrims whose Chaucer relates the stories, but we will play the game at first in order to make a clear distinction and to regard these "pilgrims" as more realistic and psychologically more complete than the women in the tales. However, to speak at length of these different aspects and the way women are described in The Canterbury Tales we must focus on the role of women in medieval times. We cannot speak of feminism at that time, as women were still regarded as the evil catalyst of human sin and had no predominant role in society. She is submitted to the authority of her husband; she has no power on the social stage and is not considered as being a citizen. On the contrary, some women are regarded as saints when they are virtuous and try to transmit their faith in Christianity. Women are indeed described from various points of view: seen as devils or saints by the pilgrims in their tales, more shaded by Chaucer in his description of the women pilgrims. Throughout the following study, we will try to answer the question that the subject of "Women in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales" raises, that is to say: What portrait is made of woman and by whom in The Canterbury Tales?

Extraits

[...] Then, we can say that there are worthy women depicted in the tales and that it counterbalances the previous description of women as evil creatures. But still, there are no shaded characters in the tales: women are either benevolent or malevolent; they embody faith and devotion or, on the contrary, the burden of original sin, being Eves”. Second part In this second part, we will study the characters of the women attending the pilgrimages: there are few of them and they don't seem to be representative of a majority as most of them are nuns. [...]

[...] Throughout the following study, we will try to answer the question that the subject of “Women in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales” raises, that is to say: What portrait is made of woman and by whom in The Canterbury Tales? We will first approach the idea of a Manichean description of women in the tales themselves. In fact, women are not described as real beings in the tales told among the pilgrims: they are more or less ideas of women given in a general and shaded way. [...]

[...] The last case is that of Pertelote in the Nun's Priest's Tale: she is angry with Chanticleer because she regards him as a coward. She would like to have him strong and victorious and prefers to believe that he had some kind of indigestion. To her, dreams are nothing but the result of his eating too much. She endangers him as he believes she is right until the moment he is caught by the fox. She is not a real temptress but rather she drives her cock-lover to the idea that he has nothing to fear. [...]

[...] But women in the tales can also be saints or at least virtuous ones. It is the case in the Man of Law's Tale: Constance is the ever-faithful wife and daughter. She always accepts her fate as a will of God and obeys her husbands and her father. As Peggy Knapp states it in her book, Chaucer and the Social Contest: [Constance] accepts the decisions of those under whose authority she falls, even though she seems to understand the danger into which she is being sent.” She accepts to marry the Sultan when he adopts her faith in God and, later, marries the king because he let God decide what judgement should be applied and to whom about the death of Hermengild. [...]

[...] Women in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales Introduction In The Canterbury Tales, women appear either as storytellers or in the tales themselves. We must therefore make a clear distinction between the women of the pilgrimage and the characters mentioned in the tales. The former are supposed to belong to the real life if we agree to play the game proposed by Chaucer whereas the latter obviously belong to myths and to the pilgrims' imagination. It does not mean that the women mentioned in the tales don't exist at all but rather that they embody different aspects and characters of women in general, or that they have existed but that their story is somehow distorted by subjective narrators. [...]