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As Chaucer's Protagonist Loses Her Virginity, She Simultaneously Loses Her ...

As Chaucer's protagonist loses her virginity, she simultaneously loses her youth, gradually acquiring maturation and experience in her relations with men (Cook, 1978). As a result of this experience, Alisoun becomes a sly and powerful female who claims that In wyfhod I wol use myn instrument / As freely as my Makere hath it sent, / If I be daungerous, God yeve me sorwe! (149-151). Trying to seduce and subdue her husbands, the Wife of Bath implicitly demonstrates her loss of innocence and cynicism. The Wife refers to experience throughout the Prologue, but, as the tale progresses, her experience appears to uncover her worst features of character (Fradenburg, 1986). As Alisoun recollects her past, she unconsciously longs for her youth and realises her age, but she tries to suppress her nostalgia. Further in the narration Chaucer opposes youth and age, depicting the relations between aged Alisoun and her young husband Jankyn.

When Alisoun marries him, she hopes to preserve her marriage, despite Jankyn's youth, but, as the times pass, she starts to suffer because of the age difference. This issue of age is revealed throughout the Prologue, but at the end of the narration Chaucer treats the Wife and her age in a more sympathetic manner. The story narrated by the Wife intensifies this sympathy and presents her as a female who is obsessed with romances. Despite her age, the Wife seems to believe in fairies and powerful desires; thus, Chaucer shows that maturation and wisdom may return a person into the state of dreams and youthful hopes. This is also revealed in the story told by Alisoun about the young knight and his old wife who is finally transformed into a young and lovable female. At the end of this story the knight provides his wife with an opportunity to choose: she has to make a choice between youth and old age. It is this opportunity of choice that allows the female to become young and beautiful.
In Miller's Tale Chaucer also analyses youth and age through the contrast between young woman Alisoun and her old husband John. On the example of John, the poet reveals that age does not always bring wisdom. John is the old man who marries a young wife, [and who] is portrayed as richly complacent and gullible" (Pearsall, 1986 p.131). Creating the image of a sely carpenter" (3601), Chaucer demonstrates that his young wife is wiser and more courageous. On the other hand, the treatment of youth and age differs in Miller's Tale and Knight's Tale; as Cooper (1989) points out, while the Knight's Tale celebrates the wisdom of age, the Miller's Tale points out its folly" (p.99). Opposing ‘sely' John to his wife who possesses "wisdom and chivalrie (865), Chaucer seems to criticise those individuals who fail to acquire wisdom with age (Miller, 1970). As a result of his naiveté, John undergoes suffering and the loss of desires.


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