In its prologue and tale, The Wife of Bath attempts to undermine current misogynistic conceptions of women. Her fight against the denigration of women has led to many feminist interpretations of her tale, most depicting the Wife of Bath as a kind of feminist icon. However, through contradictions in action and speech, the wife proves that she conforms to many of the misogynistic stereotypes she is rallying against and thus undermines a feminist reading. In exploring the implications of the Wife's inconsistencies, particularly the resulting loss of credibility, critic David Parker reinforces a non-feminist interpretation of the Wife of Bath in his essay "Can We Trust the Wife of Bath? » Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essay In the anti-feminist tradition, writers accused women of being stupid, obnoxious, exaggerated, deceptive, and manipulative. The Wife of Bath refers to such literature in her Prologue, such as her reference to Eve as "the undoing of mankind" (Chaucer 726), and also her mention of Janekin's book on "wikked wives." Throughout her Prologue, Woman attacks such depictions of women, but in attacking them she reveals that they are true. Through her own narrative of herself, the wife is exposed to embody many of the flaws that anti-feminist literature serves to accuse women of possessing. For example, the wife describes herself as sexually voracious, but contradicts this stereotype with another because she states that she only has sex to make money: “Winne who can, because everything is to sell ; / With empty hands, men cannot attract hawks. ./ To gain the world, I work out its lust,/ And give myself a feigned appetite" (420-423). Such an admission conjures up images of prostitutes and immoral women who use their bodies to get what they want ; hardly the image of the feminist ideal In fact, the wife proudly admits to using sex to bring her husbands into submission: “To wit, Abedde Hadden, they chaunk me:/ There I rebuke them and do not. do them no pleasure;/ I don't want to linger in the rest in bed/ If I felt his arm on my side,/ Until he has made his way to me then I would let him do his kindness; " (413-418). She shamelessly uses her body as a bargaining chip, teasing her husbands and withholding satisfaction from them until they have promised her gifts. The wife is proud of her manipulative skills and even boasts that the capacity for betrayal is a gift from God given to all women: "For everything that the spirit gave us at birth: / Deception, crying, spinning, God willed / To give them kindness while they live” (406-408). She does not consider her cheating or exploitation to be wrong, nor does she explain that these actions are hers alone and not representative of all women. Instead, she claims that all women have been given the gift of deception. The Wife of Bath thus reinforces misogynistic stereotypes and undermines her own position as a defender of women. Furthermore, in the opening of her Prologue, the Woman states that experience is her “auctorite”, because having been married five times, she thinks of herself. as an expert. Yet for some reason the wife then feels the need to go against her own assertion that experience is the only authority she needs and she attempts to cite texts to support her statements: he will be corrected by other men.'/ These same words wrote Ptolemy:/ Redein his Almagest and take it here” (186-189). However, this quote does not even appear in Ptolemy's Almagesete, as it claims. In an attempt to appear more erudite and intellectual, it seems, the wife simply makes herself look stupid. In his analysis, English professor David Parker argues that discrepancies in the wife's descriptions of her fifth husband call into question the veracity of her entire account. question. In her Prologue, the Wife of Bath describes Janekin as a husband who would "beat her and then earn her round by making love" (Parker 55). Even despite his abuse, the wife claims she loved Janekin the best of all her husbands because he made her fight for the “maistrye”. By her own admission, it was this quest for control in the relationship that made her marriage so happy: "We women, if it wouldn't be lying to me, / In this subject, a picturesque fantasy: / Wait what we could not be taken lightly. ,/ Thereafter we will daily weep and desire;/ Forbid us one thing, and that we desire;/ Press us quickly, and then we will flee" (Chaucer 521-526). By refusing control of the wife, Janekin maintained her interest. The Wife thus presents not only herself, but all women as fickle creatures who enjoy being perpetually teased, even dominated, by their husbands. Then, later in her Prologue, the Wife. describes the quarrel between her and Janekin which leads to the resolution in which he cedes all power in his relationship with her Following this, the wife claims, "we never had a debate./God help me, I was to him as kind/As any woman from Denmark to India,/And as trewe, and he was also to me" (828-831). This happy ending, however, contradicts the earlier statement of the wife, and Parker emphasizes that "to be happy, she would have had, according to her own analysis of the nature of women, to be continually frustrated in her efforts for 'maistrie'" (55). Thus, either the wife's prior assumption regarding the nature of the "maistrye" is incorrect, or she did not in fact obtain full control of Janekin. Either way, Parker argues, she undermined her own credibility. She is not trustworthy as a character and therefore cannot become the poster child for women's rights. She presented herself and the whole woman in a bad light. Further inconsistencies lie in the tale of the Wife of Bath. It is easy to adopt a feminist vision of this story of a knight-rapist who must discover what women desire most: “maistyre”. In the end, it seems that the knight has learned his lesson when he relinquishes control of the marriage to his wife, who then transforms into a faithful young beauty. The moral of the Tale seems to be that all women really want is control and that once they have it, their men will be happier for it. However, this reading is contradicted by the fact that it is unclear whether the knight truly has enough respect for the old hag to let her choose, or whether he is simply saying what he knows she wants to hear . After all, it seems that the knight actually gave up nothing, for his wife “obeyed him in everything/that could please or please him” (Chaucer 1261-62). Herein lies yet another contradiction: the wife's “stated beliefs in female sovereignty in marriage…are ultimately not followed by the heroine of her tale, who obeys her husband” (Parker 53). The Wife of Bath told her story in an effort to advocate for increased control of women in relationships, but she unintentionally created an ending that neatly adheres to an anti-feminist ideal in which a woman is willingly, 1985. 49-56.