Exploitation and Excommunication in 'The Wife of Bath's Tale'
- Author / Editor
- Lee, Brian S.
Exploitation and Excommunication in 'The Wife of Bath's Tale'
- Published
- Philological Quarterly 74 (1995): 17-35.
- Description
- The rape victim in WBT quickly vanishes from the text because she is "excommunicated," or denied access to the privileges of the knight who exploits her.
- Only when society assimilates such marginalized others can the rapist himself be subjected to excommuniciation, which in this tale is only temporary and is occasioned by the victim's symbolic "reappearance" via the hag and the transformed wife. Lee compares the circumstances of this rape to the events in other works, including PhyT, FranT, and LGW (Lucrece).
- Chaucer Subjects
- Wife of Bath and Her Tale.
- Physician and His Tale.
- Franklin and His Tale.
- Legend of Good Women.