Q- "By God, if wommen hadde writen

stories", says Alisoun and she does write. how would you interpret
her motivation for writing and the narrative strategies she uses in
the 'Wife of Bath's prologue and tale' ?

ANS - "By God, if wommen hadde writen stories", says Alisoun

while narrating the tribulations of her matrimony with Jankin (her
fifth husband). According to her if women would have written
stories like male clerks had, they would have exposed the
'wickedness' of many men. The Wife of Bath, Alisoun, indeed
writes and narrates her experience of being bounded in a 'marital
blessing' with her five impious husbands. Her motivation for
writing, is undoubtedly fueled from the need of questioning and
challenging the ideologies encouraging gender discrimination,
followed by the Church. The Catholic Church of the 14th century
imposed numerous restrains on women in the name of tradition.
The ideas of love, sexuality and wordly pleasures were equivalent
to sin. The preservation of 'chastity' was of utmost importance to
behold the values of 'honour' and 'purity'. Even, sincerely religious
women were forbidden from preaching. Marriage was a mere
bargain for a male to get his spouse's "both body and good".
Women were not entitled to entertain individual opinions or
perspective, a male being 'the superior' power was expected and
allowed to excercise complete control.

The orthodoxy of 'female inferiority' and the 'traditional

conventions of marriage', perhaps, motivated Alisoun to establish
feminism through her writings. In the PROLOGUE, Alisoun
challenges the preaching of the Church for preferring virginity over
marriage. She spiritedly counters the Church's teachings on
marriage and the behaviour of widows. Sex within marriage was
to beget offsprings and delight in marriage was considered a sin.
Alisoun though, does not consider 'delit' as evil, she embraces its
necessity quite boldly.

"In wyfhode I wol use myn instrument

As frely as my Makere hath it sent.

If i be daungerous, God yeve me sorwe!

My husband shal it have bothe eve and morwe"

She insists that in wifehood she would use her instrument as

freely as her creator has provided her. She argues that multiple
marriages are legal and should be socially acceptable. She talks
about gaining complete 'maistrie' of domination over her first
three husbands; "she own their land and money and their
bodies", thus, defeating them in their own game. She makes her
fourth husband jealous and angry by maintaining friendly relation
with young men in order to seek revenge for his deceitfulness as
he had a mistress.

"But certainly, I made folk swich chere

That is his owene grece I made him frye

For angre and for verray jalousye"

Her fifth husband, Jankin, abuses her verbally and physically and
nurtures a misogynist's behaviour. He restricts her movements
and wanderings, narrates her stories and proverbs of 'wikked
wyves' and even causes her partial deafness. When, from his
abuse she falls on the floor, she cries: 'You have killed me, false
thief, and surely for the sake of getting my land you have
murdered me; but before I die I would like to kiss you'. Her
pretense swoon does the trick and Jankin returns her land,
apologiese and burns his books of wicked wives. In the Prologue,
Alisoun gets mastery and sovereignty only through violence,
pretense and cunningness but in the TALE, she achieves it with
good-will and persuation. When the Knight is presented with the
choice of either an ugly and old but faithful wife or a beautiful and
young but unfaithful wife, he undergoes a moral and spiritual
transformation and requests the old wife to follow her own wish.
Both in Prologue and Tale, Alisoun addresses various issues like
women obejectification, domestic violence, misogyny etc. One can
also observe that through her writings, she is motivating women
to embrace their individuality. Her narratives illustrate the gradual
rediscovery of women, of their power and influence in society,
specifically, thier ability to achieve economic and social freedom
from a discriminating society.

Alisoun uses various narrative strategies in 'The Wife of Bath's

Prologue and Tale' to grab the attention of her listeners and
readers. Some of these are liested below -

1. First person point of view -

Alisoun being the sole protagonist of both prologue and tale,
expresses her own experiences in her own words. She makes her
own judgements and puts forward her opinions without the
influence of or fear of other characters stealing the spot light.
Such individual and sole narrative helps the spectators understand
the character better.

2. Personality and Behaviour -

Whether it is a listener or a reader, Alisoun manages to grather
thier interest with her less feminine dressup, her flamboyant
character and not so shy attitude. With her extremely red
complexion, large hips and gapped-tooth, she is larger than life,
flouts all norms of stereotypical feminine behaviour, uses salty
expressions and flaunts. Dressed in scarlet stockings with a huge
unfeminine hat "as broad as is a bokelcr or a targe", rather than
sober colours or "widewes habit blake", she does not keep quiet,
laughs and jokes around loudly in company. Her colourful
personality and boldness both fascinates and intriguies us.

3. Tone of narration -
Alisoun is the most local, assertive and uninhibited while speaking
about all facets of her life. Her voice, even if only a voice is not a
feeble one. The authoritativeness of her tone demands and
captures full attention of her audience. The changes
accompanying her tone with the twists in the plot, sometimes
calm, at times dreamy and often commanding indulges the
audience's attention easily.

4. Supporting arguments with examples -

Alisoun's prodigious memory helps her support the arguments
with examples which inturn helps her readers in comprehending
her opinions clearly. Thus, proving to be a great narrative
technique.
She quotes all examples from scriptures and writings of the
Church Father who are her opponents. For instance, she puts up a
defence against St. Jerome who resisted widow remarriage. She
quotes from The Bible, such passages that suit her prupose in
order to defend multiple marriages and widow marriage.

5. Use of sarcasm and humour -

Alisoun's narratives offer sarcastic humour which not only keeps
her readers and listeners entertained but also makes her message
apprehensive. Using the quotes from The Bible against the Church
Fathers, exaggerating her 'sunday headdress's weight' etc, Alisoun
providing the element of humour while addressing such a crucial
issue of gender bias is praise worthy. The sarcastic manner in
which she tells the men that the "reason" which they pride
themselves on' is exactly the same quality which should make
them bow to women, "sitha man is more reasonable than
womman is", makes us wonder if anti-feminists will ever be
reasonable.

BY-
RADHIKA GOEL
SECTION- A
14/53081