Geoffrey Chaucers The Canterbury Tales :: essays research papers

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, which was published in March 1981 by flyspeck Books in New York, New York is a funny piece of work about twenty- ninecharacters and their stories while on their way to Canterbury. The twenty-nine charactershave to say two stories on their trip to Canterbury. In the married woman of Bath tale, the wife ofbath tells of a tale of a young sawbuck, the central character in the story. After he raped awoman, he mustiness roam the countryside in search to the answer to the question what is itthat women most desire? This is the plot of land, for he must find the answer in order to live.The horse cavalry only has one year to get to answer this question and then he has to return to faggot Arthurs court and await his sentence. The setting is in King Arthurs court when a young man saw a pretty maidservant andraped her. The King was going to sentence him to death but the Queen decided to givehim one year to answer the question . The story is told fr om the Wife of Baths point ofview for she is narrating the story. So the conflict, being that he has to find the answer, isestablished. The knights journey does not go well. Finally on the last day that he has, hecomes up to a group of women, as he approaches they disappear and an old womanappears. This part is the climax of the plot because it is when the knight finally knows theanswer. The old woman says that she knows the answer but she will only tell it to theQueen and in return she must do anything that she asks of him. The knight agrees. Finally,while in the presence of the Queen, she tells her that the answer to what all women desireis sovereignty over their husbands. No one disagrees with her answer and so the oldwoman asks that she be married to the knight. The knight having sworn to do whatevershe pleased reluctantly agrees. But this is not the resolution. It happens later on while ontheir wedding night. The knight is somewhat disgusted and so the old woman goes on tolectu re him on the trivial nature of appearances. She tells the knight whether he wouldprefer to have a woman ugly by day, yet loyal and faithful the rest of the time or to bebeautiful and take his chances the rest of the time.