In Medieval Literature women tend to be depicted as having no agency. They have act in accordance to the man’s will and have events acted upon them. In many cases they are nothing more than props used to provide the hero a basis for a heroic act. This paper will look at two stories in which the power of women is on display and how the power is utilized in comparison to each other.
In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, we have Guinevere, Lady Bertlak and Morgana Le Fay. Guinevere is the first women that we meet and she is introduced as she is coming to sit on the dais “which was adorn with silk sides and a canopied ceiling of sheer lace, and behind her was glimmering tapestries from Tarsus, embroidered, and bedecked with the brightest and most expensive gems the jewelers could find’ (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 76-81). She seems as though she is nothing more than an objectified presence, it is not until the end of the poem that the audience learns how central to the plot that she actually is. Everything that happens in the poem is nothing more than Morgana Le Fay trying to scare Guinevere. Guinevere herself is represented as being the ideal Medieval Queen as she is the portrayed as being the standard of feminine courtliness, attractive, gracious and humble.
Lady Bertilak is quite different then Guinevere and Morgana. While Guinevere is portrayed as the austere and regal Queen, who is off limits to those around her. Lady Bertilak is more approachable and friendly then Guinevere. Lady Bertilak also acts as the temptress in her game of seduction with Gawain. When she first comes to his chamber after Bertilak has gone hunting “Her breast was exposed, and her shoulders bare./ She enters the chamber and shuts the door after her,/ throws open a window and calls to the knight/ rebuking him at once with merry words in play” (1741-1744). This shows that she not only knows that her power lies in her beauty and looks but also that she has entered the room with a purpose. Later in the poem he will compare her to a number of Biblical seductresses “And through the wiles of a woman be wooed into sorrow, /For so was Adam by one, when the world began, /And Solomon by many more, and Samson the mighty—Delilah was his doom, and David thereafter/ Was beguiled by Bathsheba, and bore much distress” (2415-2419).
Even though we realize that these lines are nothing more than Gawain trying to excuse his cowardice and lack of courtesy, we also realize that by him saying this he has admitted her power over him. This is interesting because while Morgana and Guinevere are the cause and the effect behind the events of the poem. Lady Bertilak is the only women who speaks. It is in her words that she holds her power as she uses them to turn Gawain’s renown for courtesy against him as she attempts to seduce him “"So good a knight as Gawain is rightly reputed/ In whom courtesy is so completely embodied, / Could not easily have spent so much time with a ladyWithout begging a kiss, to comply with politeness, /By some hint or suggestion at the end of a remark." (1297 - 1301)
Finally, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight we have Morgana Le Fay. She is undoubtedly the most powerful woman in the story despite never truly revealing herself. The only glimpse that the audience gets of Morgana is when she is in disguise as the old woman who is accompanying Lady Bertilak in which she is described as being covered in veils from head to her toes, so all that’s visible are her eyes, nose, and lips, which were "repulsive to see and shockingly bleared" (964). She does not even show up at the end of the poem to reveal her actions, instead it is Lord Bertilak that reveals Morgana’s plan. This act increases the sense of her power as she has distanced herself from the inevitable reactions to the events that she had put into place.
The women that will be looked at in the Wife of Bath’s Tale are the Wife of Bath, Queen Guinevere and The Loathly Lady.
The Wife of Bath is one of Chaucer’s most interesting characters and probably the most well known of all of the Canterbury pilgrims. She is in many ways the first feminist character in that she is presented as such a strong presence amongst the pilgrims. In fact, her persona is so large that she is able to silences both the Friar and the Pardoner. She is presented as being bold, loud, aggressive and self-promoting. In her story it appears as though she is speaking for women everywhere as it can be argued that the women in the tale each speak for another. The queen speaks for the girl who was raped, and the Loathly lady speaks for the Queen and the Wife is speaking on the behalf of all women.
The Wife comes across as not only being a force of nature, but as being intelligent and opinionated. She has been married six times and her beliefs on marriage act to shock the men who accompany her. The Clerk and the Parson in particular see her views as being not only immoral, but also as being sacrilegious, as they go against the teachings of the church. She states that women should always be the ones who control the house, because men are no match for women. This means that if a man wants to live in a happy home and have a happy marriage he will allow that woman to have rule over it. The wife showcases her intellect by not only making statements but by backing her ideas up with references to scholarly sources.
After a knight rapes a young girl in the woods the people want justice. When the knight is found Arthur sentences him to death. Guinevere asks Arthur for a reprieve which he grants under the condition that she is the one who punishes the knight “But that the other ladies and the queen/ So long prayed of the king to show him grace, /He granted life, at last, in the law's place/And gave him to the queen, as she should will” (Wife of Bath’s Tale 900-903). It appears at first glance that Guinevere’s intercession has just allowed the crime of rape to go unpunished. Then Guinevere then proceeds to show her power as a woman by telling the knight that he has a year and a day to discover the one this that all women want. If he fails to do this, he will be put to death. “That for your life you've no security. / I'll grant you life if you can tell to me / What thing it is that women most desire. / Be wise, and keep your neck from iron dire!” (909-912).
When we first look at Guinevere in the story it appears as though she has a lot of power in the story. She gets Arthur to allow the knight to live and is given the power to decide the knight’s punishment herself. Then we look a bit closer and see that while not without any power, her power is only that which a man bestows upon her. If Arthur had decided to ignore her request, then she would have had no discourse with which to change the knight’s fate. In the poem Guinevere shows her power further by not reacting hastily or emotionally when it came to deciding the punishment of the knight, instead she seems to take the time to find a punishment that is suited to the crime. “The queen then thanked the king with all her might, / And after this the queen spoke with the knight / When she saw opportunity one day” (899-901).
The knight spends the next year traveling the country asking women what it is that all women want, only to receive a myriad of answers. Until he meets an old hag who tells him that she knows the answer and will give it to him if he promises to do as she asks after. So after he returns to court and reveals that what women want is sovereignty. The old hag repeats his promise that he will give her whatever she desires if she gave him the answer to the question. Guinevere makes him keep his promise and he marries her. This shows cunning and shrewdness on the part of the Loathly Lady, who realizes that it is only through making his promise public that she will obtain what she wants. Later that night she turns into a beautiful woman and tells him: That he can have her remain old and hideous. In this she will be a true and virtuous wife that will never anger him. He can also choose for her to be young and beautiful but he may have to worry about the reactions and intentions of other men (paraphrased 1225-1233). He tells her to choose for herself and she decides to be both beautiful and faithful.
The Loathly Lady is a common theme in many Medieval romances, but this one is different in that all of the power is given to her. She gives the knight the choice of having her ugly and faithful or beautiful and adulterous, and when he allows her to make her own choice in that matter she chooses to be both young and faithful. The knight giving her sovereignty over her own life is what not only showcases the power of both Guinevere and the Loathly Lady, but that the knight is worthy of redemption. This is because in the beginning the knight obviously had no care about the rights or desires of women. His rape of the maiden makes it rather obvious that women to him were just things to be used and objectified. His first interaction with a woman of power is Guinevere, who literally holds his life in her hands. This seems to begin the shift in his thinking in regards to women as he takes Guinevere’s punishment and subsequent threat of death if he fails as being something to take serious.
As the poem goes one the reader can sense how stressful the situation is getting for the knight as he is getting closer to the end of the year that Guinevere has given him. This is further shown in that he is willing to give the Loathly Lady anything that she desires in order to receive that answer to Guinevere’s question and save himself from certain death. The reader does not at this point really see any reason for redemption as all of the knight’s actions are to save his life and in many ways one wants to see him fail as it is hard to conceive that the only punishment he will get for rape is answering a question. This view changes when he allows the Loathly Lady to choose because even though his crime has not changed, the reader can see that he is worthy of having redemption.
In conclusion, while the power of women is shown in both poems. The women of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight seem to be more powerful in that they were acting for themselves, whereas Guinevere and the Loathly Lady were essentially just plot devices by which a knight can redeem himself.
Works Cited
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Wife of Bath's Tale. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. Print.
Friedman, Albert B.. “Morgan Le Fay in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”. Speculum 35.2 (1960): 260–274. Web
Gerald Morgan. “Medieval Misogyny and Gawain's Outburst Against Women in "sir Gawain and the Green Knight"”. The Modern Language Review 97.2 (2002): 265–278. Web
Glaser, Joseph. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub., 2011. Print.
Steinberg, Aaron. “The Wife of Bath's Tale and Her Fantasy of Fulfillment”. College English 26.3 (1964): 187–191. Web
