The Status of Women in the Patriarchal Society of Chaucer s The Knight s Tale

This paper aims at analyzing the status of women in a man-dominated society, as shown in Geoffrey Chaucer s The Knight s Tale. To achieve such a goal, the paper analyzes the formation and development of some female figures of the tale, like Ypolita and Emelye. The paper discusses the various consequences of forcing such female characters to live in patriarchal societies, and it explains some strategies used by female characters to resist patriarchal dominance. I argue that Ypolita and Emelye s silence, for instance, is one of the main approaches adopted by the tale s female characters to resist Man s dominance, and that though silence seems productive for resisting and challenging patriarchy, it might spur Man s anger and cause him to view women as an enemy, and behave accordingly. In addition, the paper discusses the struggle between female characters desire to be independent from Man as much as possible and the desire of male characters to dominate females. Nevertheless, arguing for and against such ideas, this paper concludes that The Knight s Tale discusses the patriarchy-dominated medieval society s viewpoint that women will always be dominated and controlled by men since the system of the whole universe is patriarchal.