Assignment #3 - Research Paper Example

For men of the medieval age, there were only two types of women, the blessed ideal and the woman of the world. While the Wife of Bath is worldly in the true sense of the word whichever way it is interpreted, the Knight’s Tale illustrates peripherally the ideal of womanhood as it is represented in the figure of the Amazonian princess Emily, sister to Hippolyta and sister-in-law to Theseus. The differences between the ways in which these women are portrayed are vast, not just in the types of women they represent, but also in the method through which their stories are related.

An example of the change in voices can be seen in a comparison of the Knight’s Tale and the tale of the Wife of Bath. The knight, a man of great wealth, reputation and honor, fills his speech with the courtly manners and chivalric actions that are a central part of his world. His story is full of the importance of honor and oath-taking among men of the nobility. Theseus swears to hold the two nobles Arcite and Palamon prisoner forever, but changes his mind upon the pleading of a friend for the one and the noble escape of the other.

Arcite and Palamon swear brotherhood forever, but quickly forget this oath when they each fall in love with Emily. In this sense, Chaucer exposes the hypocrisy of such oaths in the face of the chivalric conception of love, regardless of the knight’s conception of these actions as of the highest nobility. In the Knight’s Tale, Chaucer defends the ideal of womanhood in a courtly story of love endured, fought for and finally won. Throughout the story, the object of affections is the innocent Emily, sister to Hippolyta who is wife to Prince Theseus.

Emily is described as a perfectly chaste maiden, going about the typical activities of a well-bred girl, collecting flowers, walking or simply moving about the house.