No New Tale To Tell

            In the Canterbury Tales, specifically the Wife of Bath’s tale, there’s no new tale to tell. In the story, a knight rapes a woman and has to find out what women TRULY want. But this is really not okay. It starts of by describing the setting, a fairyland where it’s commonplace for men to rape women and says that it’s okay because they only dishonor the women. EXCUSE ME I WOULD BEG TO DIFFER! Women who are raped can be impacted in many more ways than just being un-pure. It’s a traumatic experience, even if it’s the norm in their society. So, back to this despicable knight. The woman he raped was along in the corn when he spotted her. So he went and ignored her protests and objections and raped her. So King Arthur understood that this was way wrong and said he should die. And I agree with the King. He was absolutely right. This violation of the woman could have scarred her mentally, and she would have to live with that pain and humiliation that was forced on her for the rest of her life. So then later on, when the old woman tells him he has to marry her, he’s totally shocked and against the idea, but it’s forced on him. Hmmmm sound familiar? So there are a variety of messages in here but the one that I think is incredibly important is that rape is incredibly bad and should not be a thing that women have to deal with, but we do. When women out and about, they have to constantly worry about being raped. If there’s a man walking behind you just too close on the sidewalk, you start to get nervous and walk a little faster, trying to still your heart and hoping that you’re over reacting and that nothing will happen. And women have to deal with this, knowing that if they are raped, the can be blamed based on what they wear (some people will say that they were ‘asking for it’) or it could go so far as the women not being believed when they try to report it. And these are things that happen regularly. They’re not anything that women have not had to deal with before and it’s no new tale to tell.