Women Behaving Badly Essay, Research Paper

The concept of Women Behaving Badly must vary according to time period, culture, gender and authorial purpose.

Discuss in relation to Lysistrata and Wife of Bath Prologue and Tale.

Through the texts Lysistrata, by Aristophanes, and the Wife of Bath s Prologue and Tale, by Chaucer, there is the underlying concept of Women Behaving Badly , the concept of women acting out of place in society.

The concept of women behaving badly is appropriated and varied to suit both texts, according to the time period, culture, authorial purpose and gender. However the must in the discussion question above, is questionable, as there may be eternal and invariable standards, ideas, and expectations.

There is no such thing as women behaving badly, and rather it is women seen as behaving badly; and whether a woman is seen as behaving badly will depend on the audience, and their ideas, which are affected by factors including time period, culture, gender and authorial purpose.

Examples of this are seen in Lysistrata, and the Wife of Bath, where the concept of women behaving badly is appropriated to suit the audience of the times.

Lysistrata, set in 5th century BC Greek society, shows how one woman can go against the social standards of ancient Greek society, and lead a force of women to stop the long and ongoing war that Greece was fighting in.

In Lysistrata we can see how the concept of women behaving badly is appropriated to suit the time period, culture, and authorial purpose.

In it, Aristophanes appropriated the concept of women behaving badly by making the character of Lysistrata, do something that would be unthinkable for woman in that time period and culture. In the time period of 5th century BC Greece, women were seen as simply sex-crazy creatures that could not do anything of importance let alone stop a war. Yet Lysistrata did this, and by doing this, became a woman behaving badly for that time period and culture.

If the same story was applied to the current time period, or any other non-patriarchal era, Lysistrata s character would not be seen as behaving badly because of the change of circumstances and ways of thinking. No longer would standing up to male dominance and inadequacy be seen as behaving badly, but because of the time period Lysistrata is set in, and because of the culture of the society, she is. Because Lysistrata was a play in ancient Greek times, a patriarchal society, Lysistrata s actions are seen as bad.

As society s ideas and expectations of the position of women changes, so too will their ideas and expectations of what a woman behaving badly is.

The idea of the woman behaving badly also varies according to authorial purpose. Aristophanes authorial purpose in Lysistrata, was to present a satiric view of the war, and criticise the fact that Greek men were not handling it well, and to do this, he used the unimaginable, by getting women to take over, and using them as a tool. By valuing the position of women in the play, he devalues the position of men, especially in relation to the war, and what they were doing about it.

If there was a different authorial purpose, then the concept of women behaving badly would not have been presented in this way, he probably would never otherwise have put women doing something seen as so unreal, unimaginable, and unaccepted, in his play.

Gender also plays a part in whether the women are seen as behaving badly in a text or not, not only the gender of the audience, but also in some cases the gender of the author. The gender of the audience will affect how the audience views the play. When Lysistrata was presented in Ancient Greece, the male side of the audience, being the superior sex of the time, would have seen Lysistrata as behaving badly. Though, since this play is an entertaining and satirical one they would not have taken it too seriously, but still saw Lysistrata s actions as bad.

The gender of the author may also affect how they portray the women as behaving badly in the text. In Lysistrata it is not that apparent, but later on as women start writing texts using the concept of women behaving badly the gender of the author may well show through.

The same concept of women behaving badly is yet again presented in the Wife of Bath. Yet in a different way.

The concept is again appropriated to suit the audience of the time period. Although the society in which the play is set is still mainly male-dominated, women are different to those in ancient Greece, and the audience s views on women, and women behaving badly have changed.

The Wife of Bath tells a story of a woman who goes against authorities, is loud and boisterous, has apparently no sense of values or morals especially regarding her policy on marriage and husbands.

This woman is seen as behaving badly in her time period, because of society then. A society who still thought women should be seen and not heard, a society which looked up to the authorities and did not find the Wife of Bath s ways of marriage quite appropriate. So the Wife is seen as behaving badly.

This story is unique to its time period, repeated again to a society like ours today, we could not relate to it, nor see the wife as particularly behaving badly. Although her nature is amusing, and values not seen as particularly virtuous she is not considered bad .

The question of eternal standards also arises here, are there eternal standards, or must the concept vary according to various factors?

Do we still see the Wife of Bath as slightly bad? Yes we do find her values odd and her nature strange, but now we do not find her bad and that is because although there are some eternal standards of being bad, even these vary in extent. For example promiscuity is an eternal standard of being bad, yet how bad it is, still varies. In the Wife s time it was a very bad thing, yet now and in other societies we don t see it as that bad. So we can see that even eternal standards are subject to change.

Once again while the audience of the time may have found the Wife s character astonishing and appalling, the authorial purpose behind the tale is for entertainment and the audience would respond accordingly, by having a few laughs over her character. In that time they may also have picked up upon Chaucer s message on gentility, and the corruption of the Church and judicial system, disguised by the Prologue and Tale of the Wife of Bath.

The gender of the audience doesn t really play a part in the viewing of this tale. It would have been recited to males and females of the time, and I don t think their reactions would have differed too much, the men would look down on her as one of the opposite sex, and the females would look down on her as one of a lower class.

The gender of the author also doesn t play a part, he is just getting his message across using the Wife s character. A good character to use though, as a male character in the tale would not have been able to get the message across quite as well, it needed the touch of a straightforward, loud, arrogant women.

It is seen in Lysistrata and the Wife of Bath that the concept of Women Behaving Badly must vary according to time period, culture, gender and authorial purpose. The audience and the time period, culture, and gender that influences them determines how they translate and relate to the story, and how they see the women in it as behaving badly. The authorial purpose of the author also determines how the women who is behaving badly is portrayed to the audience. Any eternal standards are also subject to variation.