1. Alison, in her prologue, seems at time to be feminist and at other times anti-feminist in her attitudes toward marriage. Point out specific places in the text where she demonstrates a feminist point of view, and places where she demonstrates an anti-feminist point of view. How do you account for this ambiguity?
2. In the “Wife of Bath’s Tale,” the knight confesses to the queen, “Women desire to have sovereignty / As well upon their husbands as well as their love / and to have mastery their man above.” In what sense is the word “sovereignty” used at the end of the tale, or does the wife possess all of the sovereignty? Can a relationship between two people work with one person holding all of the sovereignty? Consider Sympathy the Learned from A Thousand and One Night. What does she have in common with the “hag” in “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”?