For the past nine years, I have had the privilege of
teaching The Canterbury Tales to my
English IV students. The Wife of Bath is my all-time favorite character! It’s
not her prologue introduction or her tale that I find enthralling; I love the conversation
that ensues her controversial philosophies. I guarantee that the knight is not the
only man who has ever felt the pressure of the life or death quest to determine
what women want! The most interesting aspect of that question is its ambiguity.
Sure, the knight learned an acceptable answer – Women want sovereignty, right?
I struggle to accept that the answer provided is THE answer that satisfies what
women want. In my experience, most of
the female students in my classes struggle as much as the male students to
answer this question. They don’t even know what they want! Personally, I cannot
say that I want to rule over my man. In some ways, I take the lead: I am more
organized and thorough. In some ways, I know that I would be at a complete loss
if given charge. He is the patient person. He can talk to customer service
people without ever losing his cool, he can get in and out of Wal-Mart without
having to take out a second mortgage, and he can iron clothes without burn
marks or emergency room visits. I would say that we happily share dominion.
Perhaps women want to be wanted. John Keats parallels “La
Belle Dame Sans Merci,” or “The Beautiful Lady without Mercy” with The Odyssey’s Circe. She attracts
lovers, lures them in, and then destroys them. There is power in being desired.
How do women ensure that they are desired? Keep men wanting more! Despite the “pale
kings and princes too, /pale warriors, death-pale,” the speaker of the poem continues
to wait for the woman who took his freedom “with kisses four.” Why? She is
clearly not coming back. She has proven herself quite the man eater. The poem
presents a powerful argument about the loss of freedom associated with men who
fall in love and the power that women have over them.
William Butler Yeats alludes to the same argument in
his poem, “The Song of Wandering Aengus”. The poem’s speaker spends his entire
life waiting, searching, and pining for the woman, “who called me by my name
and ran/And faded through the brightening air.” He even suggests the control she
will have over him in the afterlife by stating, “I will find out where she has
gone, /And kiss her lips and take her hands.” What is it about this fish-lady
that has this man so mesmerized? In my
experience, it’s the chase. Men want women who remain allusive. Men are
engineered to hunt and gather. Once the quarry is caught, the chase must once
again commence.
Jonathon Keats comments on the desire for the disappearing
woman in “Ardour.” According to the tale, “Every year men worked harder to lure
Ardour to her fate. They sang to her, played the fiddle or the flute.” The
interesting twist in this tale comes when men stop seeking her. I supposed she earned
the likeness of Kanye West’s “Gold-digger,” forcing men to reject her “cruel”
and “simple” behavior. Was she a gold-digger? Was she an opportunist? I prefer
to think that she was waiting for the one who made her feel “human.”
Women who leave men wanting more are the most desired.
They may wear negative labels and fall into unpleasant stereotypes, but they
are legends. They are immortalized by the men who chase them. They are the
protagonists of local folklore and the fame of school yearbooks. According to these
pieces of literature, all a woman needs to do, to make a man putty in her hands,
is leave. Take a few days to accept the Facebook friend request, ignore text
messages, and reschedule the dates. Women who play hard to get play boss!
As far as mushrooms are concerned, here’s my take:
Some mushrooms are delicious on top of a supreme
pizza. They are the perfect addition to a lovely marinara sauce. They are
absolutely delightful filled with cheese. And some will kill you! If that is
not the ideal metaphor for a woman (fairy or not) I don’t know what is!
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