The extraordinary prologue of The Wife of Bath offers the reader a dose of what is sometimes missing in early literature written by men: glimpses of female subjectivity. Women in medieval literature are often silent and passive, to the point that cuckolding is often seen as something one man (the adulterer) does to another (the husband). Eve Sedgwick argues in Between Men that in many literary representations, women play pieces or playing fields in fights between male players. Apparently, by default, male writers can't help but create superficial constructions of women; heroism occurs in male spheres of activity, while wives and daughters form the background and the female love interest becomes a trophy. Unfortunately, when women are not silent, they are often monsters and, very often, the silent ones hide hidden dangers. Why would women pose such a threat? Why do so many premodern (and, unfortunately, modern) male writers approach female subjects with such trepidation, with strategies of demonization or avoidance? Analysis of the Merchant's Tale and the Manciple's Tale proves fruitful in exploring these questions. In the context of the written word, in the West, women have often been silent; the small number of great medieval women writers, combined with a value system that praises the passivity and stillness of their sex, effectively deadened female subjectivity, and yet somehow, by silencing women, men condemned themselves to discomfort and fear. To silence someone is to sever access to their subjectivity, and in an intimate world like marriage such a formidable barrier quickly becomes a source of apprehension; the woman becomes the terrifying, the unknown, the thing that betrays. Fear of betrayal presents a place where many of these issues of anxiety, silence, and subjectivity converge. Fear of betrayal is the inevitable price of males ignoring or denying female voices. The inaccessibility of female subjectivity, caused by a silence imposed by men (imposed by both the male characters and the male poet) paradoxically becomes a great source of anxiety for men; the female characters are permeated by an aura of secrecy and mystery and at the same time become insidious and threatening to the male order. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The reader catches only glimpses of May's innermost thoughts in Merchant's Tale; January's inner desires and hopes are in the foreground. A third of the story passes before May even makes her first appearance, and even then the narrator keeps her at a distance. Initially, the reader knows nothing of his wishes or desires in his marriage, although the narrator informs us that "she was enchanted in his palace" (l. 1698). The material benefits of marriage seem a likely motivation, as January is very old and very wealthy, but the reader has no direct access to May's thoughts. At the wedding, May continues to be an enigma. She is described in terms steeped in fantasy and mystery: Mayus, who sits with so benyngne a chiere, Hire to biholde semed fayerye. Queen Esther never looked with an exchange of you on Assuer, so meke a ook has her. (ll. 1742-5) To describe May as enchanting, Chaucer uses the word "fayerye," which also means fairy. It becomes a fairy tale creature, described with a word that refers to something fantastic, unreal. The text also compares her favorably to Queen Esther, assuring the reader that Esther never looked upon her king with such an eye. ThereEsther's choice as a point of reference is significant; Esther's beauty is not necessarily what Bible readers remember most about her. Queen Esther was a woman full of secrets; she hid her Jewish heritage from the king, her husband. By comparing May to Esther, the narrator seems to remind the reader how little the text actually says about May. The final simile describing May's beauty in this passage is more memorable for how little it says than for any poetic insight. I can yow nat devyse al hir beautee; but so much of hire beautee telle I can, that she was lyk the bright morwe of May, satisfied with all beauties and pleasures. (ll. 1746-9) The narrator begins with a disclaimer, stating that even its superficial appearance must remain inaccessible to those who read the tale. This disclaimer is followed by a surprisingly unhelpful simile: May is like tomorrow in May. The cliché element? that's not the only problem with the simile. Especially in the literary field, the reference to the month is already contained in the name of May itself. The simile becomes sadistically repetitive. In the text, the word "May" (the woman's name) becomes not only the signified but the signifier; its very name, in a certain sense, invites us to compare it to the month. Consequently, the sentence comparing it to the month rejects a metaphor in itself, and therefore this simile does not become A=B but rather A=A or even A within A. If the two parts of a simile are too similar , then the simile ceases to be a simile, thus losing its poetic power to describe. Chaucer makes the point by rhyming "May" with "may", creating a parallel situation between his simile and his rhyme; You can't properly say that "may" rhymes with "may", since they are homophones. Thus, in describing May on the night of the wedding feast, Chaucer first creates an aura of mystery, then implies that much may be unknown about the bride, then finally provides the reader with completely non-descriptive lines about May's appearance. almost constant feature throughout history. May almost never speaks, and the first time the text directly renders her words, she is lying. (ll. 2188-2206). He opens his mouth for the first time with a long-winded speech assuring January of his virtue. In fact, every time May speaks out loud in the story, she lies. His true intentions must be communicated to the reader through gestures, actions, and the narrator's very limited access to his thoughts. When May shakes Damien's hand, her intentions become clear to both Damien and the reader (Pearsall 4/7). May's action of sleeping with Damien, of course, makes it pretty clear what she wants. And her thoughts, in a few limited glimpses, give the reader an imperfect portrait of what kind of woman May is. Her pity for Damien is the first (and last) pang of emotion that could be called gentle: “Of course,” she thought, “that this thing displeases, I think not, for here I assure you I love him better than any creature, Even if not he had nothing more than his refuge." (ll. 1982-5)Here the reader hears May's interior monologue for the first time. Of course, the moment is not particularly flattering for women. The narrator goes on to praise the tenderness of women; obviously, this tenderness must be understood ironically in the context of adultery. And, in a very real way, the reader will never fully know what May is about. She makes her desires known to Damien in a letter that the reader is never allowed to read (ll. 1996-7), and somehow this moment seems to encapsulate the reader's relationship to May's sexuality. The first great glimpse of his subjectivity comes in the bedroom scene on the wedding night, in which Chaucercreates an incredible disparity between January and May experiences (Pearsall 4/7). We see January struggling and rearing, enjoying her way of making love, while May keeps her rather negative evaluation of his performance (musical and sexual) to herself: "She thought his performance wasn't worth much" (l. 1854). Equally remarkable is the mentality with which January enters the night: But in his heart he has gan hired to manage That he who night in arms wanted to take on streyne Stronger than ever Parys made Eleyne. , "Allas! O tender creature, now wish to God that you may bear my courage well, it is so sharp and sharp!" (ll. 1752-9)A aEspecially for modern readers, January's attitude towards the wedding night is disgusting. He must submit; in a sense, January explains his subjectivity in his pity for her, but does not consider the possibility of her sexual agency. The language is that of conquest: in his heart he begins to "handle" it, and the allusions to Paris and Helen evoke a whole world of violence, kidnappings, war. His only consideration of her feelings is the hope that she will be physically able to bear him; the possibility of his sexual experience of pleasure and/or desire does not seem to cross his mind. Yet his assessment of his sexual intercourse that night would seem to suggest an experience (Pearsall 4/7). Even though there is no anxiety on January's part, the reader and narrator, with their total access to January's thoughts and limited glimpses of May's subjectivity, experience a lot of anxiety. January's desires to "manage her" perhaps seem disgusting, but May's sheer inaccessibility makes her threatening in her own way. At issue, in part, is the difference between the mechanics of male and female genitalia. The reader always knows exactly what January is thinking; and, similarly, in bed it is never difficult to know what is on a man's mind. His genitals give him away; his pleasure and desire become totally legible. A woman's pleasure and desire are known by her and her alone. This disparity mirrors the disparity of knowledge in pregnancy: a woman always knows that the child is hers, and very often can say with certainty who the father of the child is, but a man can never be completely sure. This inability to know what a woman likes in bed is playfully resolved in a rather timid omission by the narrator: And she obeys, be she the mercenary or the poor girl. nat a yow telle;di se rental thought it was paradys or helle. (ll. 1961-4)Quite simply, this passage is breathtaking. The narrator plays exactly with those tensions between knowledge, silence and subjectivity that are at the basis of the terror of betrayal. He can't tell us what he thinks because his audience doesn't want to know; but, of course, we desire to know, even if such knowledge disturbs us. The confidence of January is, for the public, what makes it so pitiful and, especially for men, what makes us unsure of ourselves. It is silenced, according to the narrator, in deference to a system of values ​​that (in the name of decency or other presumed virtues) seeks to deny female sexuality, but in keeping it silent men condemn themselves to uncertainty. The Manciple's Tale deals directly with these tensions between uncertainty, silence, and subjectivity. Like the Merchant's Tale, the Manciple's Tale also (probably) deals with a triangle of two men and a woman although one of the men, in this case, is a bird. Phoebus and his raven can be read as good friends. Phoebus taught the bird to speak and the bird is unfailingly loyal. But there is also a way in which the bird becomes fantasy or a symbol of the representation itself: Now this Phebus had in his house a raven who in a cage raised many.