The Characters In Chaucer's "The Clerks Tale" And "The Wife Of Bath Tale"

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have the possibility of
taking place.
Between the two stories, the Wife of Bath and Walter are both
characters who are the most demanding in order to gain obedience. Both
characters demand love, a sign of obedience to them. Walter tells Griselda
that the only way they will marry is if she promises to obey his commands.
He says "you love me as I know and would obey, being my leige-man born and
faithful to whatever pleases me I dare to say may succeed in also pleasing
you"(329). Walter demands her to love him and does not give her a choice.
In addition, the Wife of Bath also shows some of the same signs of
"tyranny" toward others. She takes reference from the Bible to defend her
opinions on a husband obediently loving his wife. To justify her beliefs,
the Wife of Bath says that "thus the apostle Paul has told it me, and bade
our husbands they should love us well. There¹s an command on which I like
to dwell" (262). Both Walter and the Wife of Bath are demanding to ...

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(335). She gives him complete control over her life and her
children's' lives. This is the way that she shows obedience to him. In
addition to her testing her husbands, the Wife of Bath also tests the
Knight to see how much respect and loyalty he will give her. She disguises
herself as a way of testing the Knight to see if he would be obedient to
her no matter how horrid and disgusting she was. "For which he swore and
played his honor to it, that the first thing I asked of him he¹d do it"
(286). By testing, these characters seek to find obedience from any form.
They are both the type of characters who demand and seek things for their
own personal pleasures and satisfactions.
...

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