Canterbury Tale (The Wife of Bath) - Essay Example

Medieval social standards from which that dark reality consisted were the reason of much injustice, horrible crimes, slavery, massive misery and ugly existence even in the most progressive geographical regions. Among those oppressed part of society were also women who served to men almost as slaves and only sometimes would have been given a possibility to appear equal or even stronger by absorbing money and power. The individual experience of the Chaucer’s tale main heroine and narrator allows to make an attempt to find how virtually and naturally Alison serves as an anchor to the unique woman’s progressive thinking which shows displeasure with the reality of relationship between sexes.

Among the main themes of the tale are woman’s dominance and submissive role of the man as well as declaring and stating equality between men and women. Dark Ages are not by accident called so. It was a rough time due to the total and grand chaos on the territory of the modern Europe. Following two great events – rise of the Islam religion and decline of the Western Roman Empire under the barbarian urge Europe suffered a great and total transformation on all the levels. Therefore rational thought and antique traditions of economic and political control remained lost until the early Renaissance which is exactly the times of Chaucer who can be called English version of Boccaccio both of whom are main authors of the main written documents of the early Renaissance .

In the tale the author points out that chronologically it takes place in the times of King Arthur therefore it might be somewhere between 5th and 8th centuries while Islam appeared in the 6th. . Under the catastrophic eastern pressure European kingdoms created by such legendary and perhaps even historically mythological and cult icons like Arthur, William the Conqueror or Carl the Great with all their image honored war and battleship as the most sacred, holy and important crafts therefore