Since the title of my blog comes from the “Canterbury Tales” I decided I should mention that I had a discussion group today about Wife of Bath with a huge group of Georgian all-female college students. If you could have thought that this was an awkward encounter you have NO idea. I was also specifically instructed to keep sex as a superficial element of my discussion. How is someone supposed to discuss Wife of Bath WITHOUT talking about sex??? I mean Wife of Bath can’t seem to get enough of sex. For those of you who don’t know the story I will give you a quick synopsis, but you will be better served reading it here.
It starts in the prologue with the “wife” talking about her five husbands. She says that she feels justified having five, even though the church says it’s wrong because scripture tells to “be fruitful and multiply”. She says three of her husbands were good, and two were bad. The three were good because they were old, rich, and submissive. She would manipulate them through gas lighting and withhold her most powerful weapon: sex. Her fourth husband was bad because he had a lover. Her fifth husband, the one she claims was the only one she loved was 20 years old when she was 40. He would beat her, verbally and emotionally abuse her but she still loved him because he seemed elusive.
Her story was about a knight of King Arthur who raped a girl and was sentenced to death. Arthur’s queen kept him from being executed and gave the knight a quest—find out what women truly want in one year—or be put to death. The knight traveled the country talking to women and tried to discover what women wanted. He heard money, power, looks, love, sex, and everything else but he still felt like he didn’t have the answer. As he was walking back he saw a group of virgins. As he approached they became an old hag who wanted to know what troubled him. He told her his dilemma and she said she’d give him the answer that saved his life, but he’d have to give her something in return. He agreed and she told him to say that women desired power over their husbands.
The knight went to the queen and told her what the old hag said. The queen was satisfied and his life was spared. The old hag though said this man must now marry her as his debt. The knight pleaded not to but to no avail. At night the old hag asked why he was upset and he said because she was old and ugly. She gave him a choice: she could be beautiful but bad, or ugly but good. To this the man responds: “Whatever you want, you know best”. The woman says “So I have mastered you then?” and turns into a beautiful woman and tells him he is rewarded by getting both. They live happily ever after…
So sex plays a really strong role in this story, and I could even tell by the translation the girls read that the most sexualized elements were also removed. It bothers me that I’m asked to discuss a story that is sexually explicit and yet I was only allowed to talk about sex very superficially. I’m not saying I should talk about it to a group of university girls in Georgia because that would be culturally insensitive, but the story itself shouldn’t have been used then (especially by a boy). The discussion I had of the story turned out to also be very superficial because I wasn’t able to be honest about the true meaning. The girls could tell how much I was holding back and I managed by drawing
When the “word” did come up it was meat with a lot of giggling and some scared faces. I can’t really write personally what my impressions are about this, because I’m worried about the types of people who may read this and I don’t want any Georgian being upset at me. Really, I just think that a different tale from Chaucer would have been better to avoid this dilemma between being true with the text and being culturally sensitive. It makes me a little worried about what will happen when I have to teach Shakespeare, because that guy also had a sick mind. If you want an individual’s opinion on sex in Georgia you should read his TLG blog. This post (and Part II) caused a lot of hype last year and plenty of people in Georgia were ticked off. Rightfully so, too. I’m not saying this is anything that I believe or adhere to, and I don’t necessarily think he’s right in everything, but you may learn a thing or two. Just read with caution and know that this guy was in country for a month, maybe two months when he wrote this.
No comments:
Post a Comment