Seductive Violence and Three Chaucerian Women

O’Brien, Timothy D. Seductive violence and three Chaucerian Women. College Literature (West Chester University, PA) (Spring 2001) p 178-196

O’Brien takes a look at the Wife of Bath, the wife in the Shipman’s tale, and the Prioress, with the argument that all three of them portray themselves as objects of violence in order to provoke sexual desire in men. By far, the most interesting argument he puts forth is that each woman in the tales, tailors how she portrays herself as on object of violence to the man she’s trying to seduce. Alison, in the Wife of Bath’s Tale, uses a dream to seduce Jenkyn, which O’Brien argues is working within how education worked in the time- beatings were given to beat out the feminine qualities and instill a sense of masculinity when lessons weren’t learned- lessons which were often tied to violence around women, and where rape was often treated as a way for men to become one with their masculinity. The wife in the Shipman’s Tale is trying to seduce a monk, and with the language of how she refers to herself, is reminiscent of the bodily violence and torture perpetrated onto female saints of the time. Where O’Brien’s argument becomes confusing and difficult to follow is when he’s attempting to explain the medieval mindset about how women are inherently violent and unclean to explain Alison’s dream. He also argues that the Prioress romanticizes violence, and by doing so creates herself as a romance object, her need to be desired more general than the other two women he talks about. This argument is vague and glossed over. The points about how the women in the stories are constructing the men as the powerful party by placing themselves in violent seductive positions, is interesting and worth reading. The most interesting part of the article however was the discussion of how violence, and specifically violence towards women, was an integral part of the education of males in the medieval ages.

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