The Wife of Bath’s Tale and The Clerk’s Tale Essay

â€Å"The life so short, the craft so long to learn† (Famous Quotes). The Canterbury Tales is enriched with humanistic merit that allows the reader to sharpen his or her own craft of life. Specifically, â€Å"The Wife of Bath’s Tale† and â€Å"The Clerk’s Tale† are embodied with multiple struggles of life that pertain to life in the present. Despite seven centuries of society constantly evolving, the two stories’ plots can still be further analyzed through similar themes about relationships that pertain to modern society and how rhetorical strategy allows the audience to relate to the narrative characters. The two tales, told by the Wife of Bath and the Clerk in The Canterbury Tales, have parallel plots. â€Å"The Wife of Bath’s Tale† begins with a†¦show more content†¦(â€Å"The Clerk’s Tale† 208-14). It is human nature to have issues of balance within any relationship. For example, the knight, desperate in need, found an old woman who knew the answer to save his life. In order for him to receive vindication, he had to pledge his life to her. The old woman at last revealed the answer, that all women want sovereignty over their husbands and lovers (â€Å"The Wife of Bath’s Tale† 170-71). In contrast, Walter forces Griselda to be submissive at all times as he tests her loyalty and obedience by pretending to kill both of her children and asking for a phony divorce. One tale appears to suggest that the male should be inferior to his wife as the other tale promotes that the woman should be at least steadfast in adversity and obedient to her significant other. The issue of an unbalance relationship is still a part of modern society because the majority of people are familiar with the saying, â€Å"Who wears the pants in the relationship?† That joke derives fr om the struggle of dominance in a relationship. Yet the characters’ opinions of where they believe a woman belongs in a relationship are slightly polar; both stories are constructed around the theme of struggle in a relationship (â€Å"The Clerk’s Tale† 217-24). Despite the struggle of dominance, the constant focus of beauty versus ugly offers another obstacle in a relationship. People are more complacent when embraced by others similar to them. It is another human nature tendency.Show MoreRelatedThe Marriage Debate in The Canterbury Tales Essay613 Words   |  3 PagesCanterbury Tales, many travelers gather together to begin a pilgrimage. During their quest, each of the pilgrims proceed to tell a tale to entertain the group. From these stories arise four different tales, in which Chaucer uses to examine the concept of marriage and the problems that arise from this bonding of two people. In the tales of The Franklin, The Clerk, The Wife of Bath, and The Merchant, marriage is debated and examined from different perspectives. 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