The Wife Of Bath's Tale Analysis

“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie) The claim that all women desire the same thing is going to stereotype a whole gender. Dennis Prager’s explores this generalization in his editorial “What do Women Want?” He bases his whole argument around one simple statement, “What a woman most wants is to be loved by a man she admires.” Prager describes the archetype of an admirable man based on the three qualities of strength, integrity, and ambition. His editorial, however accurate at some points, makes an incorrect assertion of what women really want the most. The evidence he uses to back up his argument is completely centered around men, making the assumption that women’s security lies in whether or not the man she marries is admirable. This does not take all the women who are unmarried, or do not even have an interest in men into
The wife of bath is a very confident woman who, in the prologue of her tale, talks about her five husbands. She seems very satisfied with her life and her choices; she is fulfilled regardless of the men she was married to. Even with all their deaths, she remains happy and independent. “But even now I will strive to be merry.” (Lines 478-479) The story she tells is about a knight who, after he rapes a young girl, is forced by the queen to find out what women desire the most. He finally discovers that what women want the most is to have sovereignty over their husbands. This goes directly along with the character of the wife of bath, who loved the control she had over her husbands more than anything else. The story proves that the answer to what women want the most is not just one static statement. What a person desires most in life depends on their own character and their own