"A shockingly cynical picture". In the light of this comment, discuss the Wife of Bath's account of her marriages to her first three husbands. In your response, you should consider:

"A shockingly cynical picture". In the light of this comment, discuss the Wife of Bath's account of her marriages to her first three husbands. In your response, you should consider: * what the account reveals about the Wife of Bath's character and personality * the account's significance in the poem's treatment of the theme of marriage * tone and style Within the Prologue the Wife of Bath leaps into account of her marriages to her first three husbands. We are treated to a vivid depiction of her distinct character and personality and gain profound insight into Chaucer's treatment of the theme of marriage. I will now discuss in detail how the wife paints a picture that is "shockingly cynical". To begin, the wife's merciless and uncaring nature should be considered. She takes delight in recounting the sexual demands she made of her husbands and the misery that she thus caused them. It is almost as if she gains a sadistic pleasure from doing this: "I laughe whan I thinke/How pitously a-night I made hem swinke". Moreover, the wife recalls with a boastful tone how "many a night they songen "weilawey!" She also prides herself on her ability to make them bring her "gaye things fro the faire" yet she still "chidde them spituously", highlighting a lack of respect towards her husbands. This is likewise apparent in the wife's tirade against them in which she employs a variety of

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  • Subject: English
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A critical appreciation of 'to my mother' by George Baker.

Sonnet To My Mother Most near, most dear, most loved, and most far, Under the huge window where I often found her Sitting as huge as Asia, seismic with laughter, Gin and chicken helpless in her Irish hand, Irresistible as Rabelais but most tender for The lame dogs and hurt birds that surround her,- She is a procession no one can follow after But be like a little dog following a brass band. She will not glance up at the bomber or condescend To drop her gin and scuttle to a cellar, But lean on the mahogany table like a mountain Whom only faith can move, and so I send O all her faith and all my love to tell her That she will move from mourning into morning. George Barker A critical appreciation of 'to my mother' by George Baker This sonnet by George Baker is, as the title suggests, a tribute to his mother, evidently, at the time of the aerial bombardment of Britain by the Luftwaffe in the Blitz during the Second World War. The poet was then, apparently, living in a far distant part of the world, as he refers to his mother being 'most far'. This was probably some time between 1942 and 1943 when Baker was living in the U.S.A and Canada. The poet's intension is not only to pay tribute to his mother but, more specifically, as the poem is addressed 'to' her, to send her his love and expression of his firm belief that she will 'move' from 'mourning to morning', in

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To what extent does the Pardoner manipulate his audience?

Daniel Lovell To what extent does the Pardoner manipulate his audience? The Pardoner has had a graduate education in the rhetoric of confession. Chaucer might intend it to be merely cutely ironic that this confessor confesses -- as in "isn't that a turning of the tables, la!" On the other hand, it may well be that the Pardoner is practicing his rhetorical prowess on the other pilgrims, and on us, with the extreme skill of a cynical and perceptive man who's heard every villainy and mastered every deception. His intention, in his "confession" to the pilgrims, is obviously not to manipulate them into pity, forgiveness and acceptance, any more than it is to get them to actually pay to touch his "holy relics"; it is a confession, but one entirely without contrition. His objective, however, is not to garner sympathy; it is to showcase his manipulative talents, to expose the gullibility and selfish depravity which underlie many displays of religious belief, and to shock, mock and violently strip his listeners of their illusions. In the Canterbury Tales, the Pardoner is the cynical but authoritative voice of truth at its most foul. If a man is clever and perceptive -- if he is not prone to self-delusion, if he has keen insight into himself, into others and into human nature -- then that man will have an ability to manipulate and exploit others -- that is, a consequent temptation

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  • Subject: English
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Poem Analysis: Felix Randall By Gerald Maneley Hopkins.

Niels Looije 4/10/2002 Poem Analysis: Felix Randall By Gerald Maneley Hopkins This poem written by Hopkins, in 1880, is a religious sonnet addressed to the dead Felix Randall, the farrier. It is a sonnet, meaning that it contains 14 lines, divided up into two quatrains and a sestet, which in turn is divided up in two tercets. This way of writing in fact keeps Randall from expressing himself completely because he is following a fixed rhyme scheme, but nonetheless he has written a powerful poem with an extensive use of vocabulary. The story that is told in the sonnet is divided up into two different perspectives: the physical state, and the mental or spiritual state. The fist quatrain is told in a physical point of view and is an introduction to Felix Randall who is horse farrier. This being mentioned immediately brings to mind that he must be a strong man, which in turn creates the physical perspective. After being introduced to Felix Randall, the reader is immediately thrown into the deep end by Hopkins and told that Randall is dead, that he had died from "four fatal disorders" and all Randall's harsh and hardy-handsomeness had been lost in his death by this sickness. The vocabulary, which Hopkins uses in this quatrain, brings out the harshness and the boisterousness of Felix Randall. Obviously a person needs to be strong and big-boned in order to be able to put

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: English
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