She’s pretty disrespectful and with her fifth husband, they only way she got anything was because she hit him. She has a hard time staying focused to what she saying, that gets confusing and hard to follow. Overall, she is my favorite character so far, she is a powerful woman who gets what she wants, she also, like everyone else, has flaws. Wife of Bath was married five times, “As three of hem were goodie, and two were baddie” (203). Even just classifying these men like this is kinda crazy.
Her husbands, all five of them were teased with sex, but they had to provide luxuries that she desperately craved for. The underlying theme of The Wife of Bath relates to power struggles rather than spousal equality in marriage. The Wife of Bath gives an insight into a hard working semi-independent woman of the Middle Ages. She is semi- independent because she is dependent upon her husbands for material goods. "In the words of the Wife of Bath, God has given women three talents- deceit, weeping, and spinning" (Power 118).
It is interesting that she spends a lot of time in the prologue going over written authority in the same way the clerks she criticizes do. She believes her five marriages are justified because no one can give her a good enough reason to make her think otherwise. Even though the church looks down upon her life, she is very proud of it. Her prologue sounds like a confession without remorse. The only thing she regrets in her life is her old age which is consuming her beauty.
Throughout the Awakening, the direction of the plot fluxuates based on the choices made by the characters. Of all the characters, none make choices as drastic as Edna Pontellier. Her decision to turn away from her husband defines her as one of the rarest types of women in that time period. The American society of that time was not used to seeing a woman even think of leaving her husband, which is what made this such a controversial novel. Robert Lebrun realizes that his love for Edna will come at an expensive price and is forced to come decide if he will let a family be torn apart in the name of love.
The book is written for modern Americans, and modern Americans would find it in severe distaste to see a girl being blindly obedient to her father even when what he asks of her goes against her own wishes. Modern Americans want to see a strong female character that fights the norms to do what she wants. This is something that is highly valued in modern American culture. For instance, the suffragettes are highly respected historical figures because although it went against all cultural norms, they fought for what they believed in. Similarly, Birdy fights for what she believes in; the right to pick who she marries: I saw Shaggy Beard’s messengers in the yard, talking solemnly to each other.
It not only changes our view on Addie, but our view on the novel as a whole. Addie's voice is imparative to the reader's outlook and while we can sense it through the voices of others, her chapter best sums up her mind. So, what if Addie's chapter did not exsist? For one, we would never have comprehended her mind and the way it twists around things like how she feels about her children and husband. We would have all thought of her as still the same loving mother who watches her son, Cash, methodically build her coffin not because she is ready and wanting soon to be in it, but because he is her son and she loves to see him work.
She makes a show of not taking her mother’s advice by saying things like, "Don’t be so old-fashioned, Ma […]. I’m my own person." This woman likes to think that she’s in charge of herself. All the same, she continues to look for her mother’s approval, especially in romantic relationships. She claims that she doesn’t want her mom’s opinions about Rich, but desperately wants her mother to like him.
The evil that I felt was portrayed in Charlotte Temple is not the independence Charlotte wants, but the realization that she can’t get her independence happily without the financial and emotional assistance that others can give her. She even admits her confinement to being reliant on others after the letter from her parents. She says, “I will not wound the hearts of those dear parents who make my happiness the whole study of their lives…"(Rowson 46). This evil element of trying to discover her own independence taunts Charlotte throughout the text. Charlotte Temple, by Susannah Rowson was popular in the 19th Century simply because it was just that; simple.
Most important, she does not realize that, rather than being committed to staying single (as she always claims), she is in love with and wants to marry Mr. Knightley. Though these mistakes seriously threaten Harriet’s happiness, cause Emma embarrassment, and create obstacles to Emma’s own achievement of true love, none of them has lasting consequences. Throughout the novel, Knightley corrects and guides Emma; in marrying Knightley, Emma signals that her judgment has aligned with his. Austen predicted that Emma would be “a character whom no one but me will much like.” Though most of Austen’s readers have proven her wrong, her narration creates many ambiguities. The novel is narrated using free indirect discourse, which means that, although the all-knowing narrator speaks in the third person, she often relates things from Emma’s point of view and describes things in language we might imagine Emma using.
First examining marriage in Pride and Prejudice, the prime example of it in this novel is that surrounding the Bennett family who are not wealthy people, and there is nothing that Mrs Bennett wants more than to see her daughters get married to wealthy men. She presents this desperation at the very beginning of the book when she is eagerly mentioning the fact that Netherfield Park has been let, and she is said to be speaking “impatiently” when her husband does not return this eagerness. This is shown when she says “you do not know what I suffer”. This suffering may be as a result of her own marriage (which disappoints her) or the fact that she wants each of her five daughters to find wealthy husbands. She states in the first chapter that the “solace” of marriage is “visiting and news.” This explains why Mrs Bennett is so desperate for her husband to visit Bingley and find out more about him and to introduce him to their daughters.