From 'Eva' to 'Ave' to Eglentyne and Alisoun: Chaucer's Insight into the Roles Women Play

Description: Surveys Chaucer's depictions of emblematic women in BD, HF, PF, and TC, and examines the Prioress and Wife of Bath as complex women who struggle with the roles imposed on them by male-dominated society. The GP description of the Prioress reflects a woman's strategy for saving a "positive sense of self," and PrT is a "glorification of helplessness." WBP depicts a woman "trapped between sexual and intellectual needs," one who uses marriage for revenge even though she becomes "her own target of hostility."

Chaucer Subjects: Wife of Bath and Her Tale; Prioress and Her Tale; Book of the Duchess; House of Fame; Parliament of Fowls; Legend of Good Women