Essays on Hag

Discussion and Journal Questions

Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s tale and her prologue are deemed by many to be some of the best parts of The Canterbury Tales. The story vividly describes the role of a woman in the Middle Ages through the character of Alison. However, her position does not seem to be very typical for that period of time, as she believed her experience in marriage matters could dominate the male authority. This idea is constantly expressed with the help of the notion of woman’s “sovereignty” over her husband. In The Wife of Bath’s tale, the ...

In this paper I will look at the character of Alyson, the Wife of Bath from the Canterbury Tales. She is a very wealthy, well-traveled woman as she has traveled around Europe and she has traveled on the pilgrimage to Jerusalem a total of three times Alyson is a very talkative, brash and sexual woman, who is a seamstress by vocation. Throughout her prologue she brags about the number of affairs and marriages that she has had. She has been married a total of five times and her current husband is half of her age. Besides her affinity for ...

In Medieval Literature women tend to be depicted as having no agency. They have act in accordance to the man’s will and have events acted upon them. In many cases they are nothing more than props used to provide the hero a basis for a heroic act. This paper will look at two stories in which the power of women is on display and how the power is utilized in comparison to each other. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, we have Guinevere, Lady Bertlak and Morgana Le Fay. Guinevere is the first women that we meet ...