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The Women from The Odyssey, The Wife of Bath, and Sir Gawain Until recently, the role of women in literature has seemed to reflect the way they were treated in society. Women were seen as secondary to men, and their sole purpose in life was to please a man's every desire. This is not the case in three specific literary works. The Odyssey, The Wife of Bath, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight use the actions of its women characters to greatly enhance important thematic elements.
The women in each of these works use feminine psyche to persuade men to do things that men of the time would not usually do. The use of women in these literary works is very contrary to the prevailing ideals of the female and her responsibilities at the time each was written. In each case, the woman possesses an almost supernatural power to influence others to do as she requests. Though it is somewhat premature to assume that the authors of these pieces started a feminist revolution, they most definitely allowed women to be seen with a respect that the female had never enjoyed.
The Odyssey contains many female characters that influence the entire climax. Athena is an obvious example, because as a goddess and fan of Odysseus, she is able to create supernatural occurrences to help Odysseus to survive. But to include her as a woman is not feasible, because she is an immortal god. The true female heroine of The Odyssey is Penelope, the loving and devoted wife of Odysseus. She fits the perfect mold of an excellent mother and faithful wife.
Although Odysseus is believed to be dead, she does not marry again and does everything in her power to prevent this from happening. She is able to use trickery and deceit to avoid the suitors without allowing them to find out what she is doing. She has informed her men-in-waiting that she will marry when she finishes weaving her shroud. She works all day on it and secretly undoes her work at night while they are sleeping. In this case, Penelope is seen as smart and cunning, and she is being faithful to her husband and at the same time, she does not have to blatantly disrespect the suitors. At the time this was written, it was almost impossible for a woman of her stature to avoid remarrying immediately.
Another way that Penelope is seen as loyal and exceptional as a woman is the test that she gives Odysseus when he returns home in disguise. Make up his bed for him, Eurykleia. Place it outside the bedchamber my lord Built with his own hands. Pile the big bed With fleeces, rugs, and sheets of purest linen. (23. 180 - 83) After Odysseus becomes enraged when Penelope asks the maid to make his bed outside, she realizes that he knows the secret that only Odysseus and her share.
She embraces him and praises his homecoming. Once again, Penelope is wise and patient in her decision-making. The suitors pursued her, overtook her home and aggressively pushed her to remarry as she was supposed to. If Penelope would have given in, The Odyssey would not have ended with Odysseus returning to a loyal home. Through cunning, independence and loyalty, Penelope is able to create a positive image as a woman. Chaucer's Wife of Bath has similar independence and cunning, but she makes her name as a domineering lady that chooses who she wants, and when she wants them.
During the time period in which Chaucer wrote The Wife of Bath women were most commonly seen as prizes won by men. They were treated merely as objects of housework and sex. Although, women of Homer's time period were not degraded as severely, both periods did not allow the due respect women should have received. The Wife of Bath is an exact antithesis of this view.
The Wife of Bath, known as Alison, is the complete opposite of the typical woman of that time. In fact, she acts more like the husband in the marriage. She tells stories of how her first three husbands suffered greatly at her hands. Alison also goes on to describe how she just used these husbands for wealth, sex and notoriety. "Blessed be God that I have married five, / And always, for the money in his chest / And for his nether purse, I picked the best" (44 - 6). Here, she is exclaiming her joy in the fact that she has married five men, and she married all of them only for there money. Alison is acting as a symbol of independence and freedom for women to break traditional barriers.
It was unheard of at the time for a woman to marry even twice, unlike the ways of the Ancient Greeks, and Alison was the voice for women to hear. The Wife focuses her life on mastering her husband and, in turn, making him her subservient. She even goes so far as to say that men were only created by God to serve women and reproduce: Why else in books is this opinion met, That every man should pay his wife his debt? Tell me with what a man should hope to pay Unless he put his instrument in play? They were supplied us, then, for our purgation, But they were also meant for generation. (135 - 140) Usually, this was the view that men took toward women in medieval times, but Alison is letting her fellow women know that it is acceptable, in her eyes, for women to use men this way.
Even though Alison's actions may be considered ungodly and morally intolerable, she is permitting women to live a life that only men had been able to live. The Wife of Bath is a much different character than the other women that Chaucer writes about. He usually speaks of women as being objects of brutality and slavery to their husbands, but Alison is the exception. By telling a story of her many husbands and her blatant disregard for the sanctity of marriage, Alison is giving the female sex a different outlook on the expected role of the woman in a family. The women of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are equally deceptive, but their treachery involves the use of qualities that appear magical in the poem, but are actually symbols of a woman's power over men.
The function of the woman in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is not only necessary; it is the entire reason for conflict. The woman uses her powers to not only trick the hero, but she also creates personal struggle for Sir Gawain. When Sir Gawain stays at Bercilak's castle, he is tempted by Bercilak's beautiful wife. Each time the host goes hunting, the wife attempts to offer herself to Gawain, knowing that Gawain must give Bercilak whatever he wins that day.
She tells him "my body is here at hand, / Your each wish to fulfill; / Your servant to command / I am, and shall be still" (1237 - 40). It is hard for Gawain to resist such beauty, for he had seen nothing like it. "Her body and her bearing were beyond praise, / And excelled the queen herself, as Sir Gawain thought" (944 - 945). The lady uses her most certainly magical beauty to tempt a noble man to do something that he knows is terribly wrong. She also shows great control over this male in the way that she kisses him. She pulls Gawain into her arms and kisses him. He has no control over her ability as a woman to seduce him.
These actions render a feeling that the lady is on the hunt, just as her husband is doing simultaneously. Once again, the female is placed on equal ground with the male, and she eventually reaches a higher level. When Sir Gawain accepts her gift of a green girdle, the lady has succeeded in her hunt, and her husband has not. Gawain does not give his winnings for the day to Bercilak, and the lady is successful in causing Sir Gawain to become deceitful and shameful. In this case, as with Penelope's, the lady uses cunning and her given skills to prey on Gawain's desires and knightly obligations to be polite and courteous. The lady has used her feminine qualities to create the main conflict of this literary work, and she allows for other women to follow her lead.
Sir Gawain finally comes to the realization that woman is most powerful when he says, "Deem it no wonder, / And through the wiles of a woman be wooed into sorrow, / For so was Adam by one, when the world began" (2414 - 2416). The lady of the castle was able to make use of her feminine mystique to cause the supposedly infallible knight to make a horrible decision, so causing the conflict of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The role of the female in literary works has often reflected the way that women were viewed at the time of each work's creation. For three works, The Odyssey, The Wife of Bath, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, each author chose to oppose the prevailing view. The characters that these women play are crucial to the hero's success or failure. Each woman is able to overcome adversity and oppression to prevail over the male sex.
By doing so, they can be viewed as being a role model to all the women who read these works. Even though, there may not have been noticeable changes in the way women were treated in each work's respective time period, they serve as a divergence away from traditional values and set a framework for further success in equality. Works Cited Anonymous. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The Norton Anthology. Ed.
Sarah Lawall. 7 th ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999. 1458 - 1511.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale. The Norton Anthology. Ed. Sarah Lawall. 7 th ed. New York: W.
W. Norton & Company, 1999. 1549 - 1572. Homer. The Odyssey. The Norton Anthology.
Ed. Sarah Lawall. 7 th ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999. 209 - 513.
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