Chaucer’s female characters in the Canterbury Tales: Born to thralldom and penance, and to been under mannes governance

Abstract

This essay analyzes and compares female narrators and six female characters in Canterbury Tales to women’s status in England in the fourteenth century and aims to demonstrate that the female narrators and characters are representatives of women in that society, which was patriarchal and misogynist. The essay also contrasts women’s characteristics and attributes to the male narrator’s, in the Canterbury Tales, perspectives on women found in their prologues and tales, analyzing what the text reveals regarding the male narrators opinions or preferences as to admirable and desirable characteristics in women.