The Wife of Bath

As it goes, when I read any piece of literature, or content, I often like to consider how this pertains to my current life, or our current state as a society and why it would be of any importance to interpret it. As I read the prologue and the wife of bath, I was inherently impressed with how some of these same societal problems, and questions, have transcended through time, and through many iterations still linger around our society today.
            In these selections, we actually see a couple of concepts that we are dealing with a lot today in our society, women’s promiscuity, rape culture, and the notion of what it takes to “please” a woman, or figure out what it is she wants. I have to applaud the wife for being a sort of grassroots feminist in exposing her practical view on men and courtship, although it is not a path I personally would take, nor do I necessarily agree entirely with her point of view, the notion of going against the grain in thinking the way she does about husbands, and men in general, is admirable. Women’s alleged promiscuity seems to be a big topic, and this view kind of gives the steering wheel to the women themselves rather than leaving it up to the public to make a judgement and attack her with it.
            On the other hand, in the actual story, I have to say that the fact that the knight isn’t simply burned at the steak for the sexual abuse he has inflicted is not something I generally agree with, but I suppose with no knight, we have no story. However, I disagree with the fact that he gets to go on the journey of discovery as far as what women want, and gets a relatively happy ending. Like many men who exhort their dominance and power over women today, and have done so through the years without any real repercussion, it enforces that kind of behavior and normalizes it. This is not something I necessarily agree with.
            Lastly, to this day, we are still trying to “figure out what women want”, and I believe in some ways they certainly do want the right to sovereignty and to govern themselves. In some pockets of society, it seems that we have even figured out that women have better minds for certain things, and can be accepted as equals or even superiors depending on the context.

            All in all, I think these pieces can obviously be dissected and turned in various different ways but are still in some ways relevant  and can even reflect at certain points problems that our current society also faces.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Social Media Campaign - UNLITTER

For one, I want to say, this was the most relevant and informative presentation we've had all semester, as it relates to our time directly and forces us to look inside at what we are truly doing with our social media intake and how we are using it to impact the world. In terms of Social Media campaigns, the possibilities are pretty endless, and the level of impact they seek to have is also endless. In efforts to bring light to a smaller campaign that seeks to do something simpler but impactful, I will  be talking about the #UNLITTER campaign. Seeking to inspire people to keep the earth clean, for the sake of the environments and its animals, the #UNLITTER campaign looks to rally people and encourage them to help pick up pollution, liter, trash, and any unnatural debris and invite their friends  to do the same by posting on social media about the impact they are making in their communities. The #UNLITTER movement also seeks to bring awareness, and inspire people to live a lif...
Read more

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters

Reading comics is a very particular kind of literary experience. For me, a person who hasn't picked up any kind of comic but maybe once in my life and never finished, I found that it is unlike most literary experiences, and that there's a process to how to do it, and what to pay attention to. The imagery in comics informs you just as much as the text if not more, and there's a particular order in which to look at a page and to make sense of it. This, for me, makes it a more confusing experience than simply reading a book, as I have far more practice in that realm. In the world of the graphic narrative, we see the authors voice come through a combination of  the imagery they present, the format of said imagery, and the writing style they pursue. In My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, the imagery and the format are the main factors for me. This pen sketching style on ruled paper, seeming much like an illustrated diary of sorts points to the idea of someone speaking from inside,...
Read more