The wife of Bath from Canterbury Tales Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The wife of Bath from Canterbury Tales - Essay Example The Wife discusses how she has been frequently criticized in all these years. The Wife makes references to the history of religion in order to satisfy the concerns of people because she knows that nobody would object to the religious reference. She considers the fifth marriage justifiable for the reason that figures of the great Old Testament such as Solomon, Abraham and Jacob each had several wives simultaneously. She confesses that virginity has conventionally been defined as a very important and sacred thing, though she says that even by marrying, she is doing her bit to promote this ideology about virginity in her own way since virginity only has significance as long as there are procreators. The Wife of Bath believes that virginity is too sacred a thing to be endorsed by ordinary people like her. Her sexual power plays the role of an instrument with which The Wife of Bath controls her husbands. The Wife of Bath tells that three of her five husbands have proven â€Å"good† while the rest have been â€Å"bad† husbands. What primarily made the first three husbands good were their submissiveness, wealth and seniority. She giggles while recalling the agony she caused to them and a typical conversation with them. She used to accuse her good husbands of having multiple affairs and get favors from them when they drank. The Wife of Bath says to the pilgrims that she had been lying to her good husbands and that she blamed them to put them into grief. She went to the extent that she would not satisfy her husbands in the bed until they paid her for that. She is proud that she has been able to make full use of her oratory and sexual power to make her husbands submissive. The Prologue is different from The Wife of Bath’s Tale in that in the former, she justified her own fifth marriage while in the latter, she discusses the story of a knight who was supposed to bring the answer of what women want the most in the whole world to the

Ecofeminism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Ecofeminism - Essay Example From the case, eco-feminism is displayed from the protests of the women who pushed the government into reconsidering their lagging policies. Ecofeminism, generally, uses similarities between the oppression of women and that of the natural world in analyzing ecological issues. Ecofeminism advocates for a fundamental shift, from the constructions of the dominant groupings within the society, in the regard of how they think and interpret the relationship between the natural world and humans. It seeks to establish the specific roots of the destruction of the ecology and the environment. It explains the control over the environment as based on the general patterns of control and...... ists greatly, the attempts to create a universal environmental philosophy – as many of the related problems are assigned abstract, universal answers – which form part of the problem in question. Further, this perspective is in its early stages of development, thus, the theorists urge that the approach to environmental problems get their basis on new ways of thinking. Lastly, it points to the significance of the dualism of connections, for example male/female, mind/body, reason/emotion and objectivity/subjectivity in shaping an understanding of the world. This kind of understanding will be significant in establishing a less destructive interrelation between the natural world and humans (Warren, 1997, p. 47). An identifiable strength of this theory is that it calls for open-mindedness in adopting new ways of thinking – when addressing the matters surrounding the domination of women and the natural world. Also, the strength is that it gives significance to the dynam ics of the natural world, which cannot be applied to the dynamic nature of the world – as it reduces it into an abstractive form. The model also places importance on the adoption of new models of thinking among both women and men – as a way of arriving at constructive meanings. However, the theory does not succinctly create a linkage between the oppression of women and that with the natural world. Here it would address the aspects of – one being the cause of the other, and an account of the domination to be accorded more ethical priority. From the account of the author, the model is capable of portraying the natural world in its dynamic manner – through its provision on the need to adjust to the dynamic nature of humans, the natural world, and the linkages thereof (Warren, 1997, p. 23). This model