Canterbury Tales; Analysis of the wife of bath and satire in her tale Essays

Canterbury Tales; Analysis of the wife of bath and satire in her tale Essays Canterbury Tales; Analysis of the wife of bath and satire in her tale Paper Canterbury Tales; Analysis of the wife of bath and satire in her tale Paper Essay Topic: The Canterbury Tales Canterbury Tales: Analysis of the Wife of Bath and Satire in her Tale Name: Institution: Lecturer: Course: Date: Canterbury Tales: Analysis of the Wife of Bath and Satire in her Tale The Canterbury tales are a collection of tales told by Geoffrey Chaucer. The Wife of Bath’s tale helped explain the duties of women in the middle ages. The wife of bath refers to herself as Alyson and Alys in the text. She bickers a lot, and confuses her names with those she uses while gossiping with other women. In the tale, a knight present in King Arthur’s court rapes a woman in a wheat field, a crime that attracts the death penalty. However, he is reprieved after the Queen and knight’s lovers intercede in the matter. The knight is handed over by the king to the Queen for judgment, she sends him on a mission to find out’what women really want than anything else’. She gives him exactly 366 dayscome up with a conclusive answer, if the knight does not have a fit enough answer for the Queen he risks his life. In his quest, he finds different answers from every woman he meets, some tell him that they like flattery and others prefer riches. During the entire year, he fails to find a conclusive answer and decides to risk his life and return to the Queen and inform her of his findings. However, on his journey back home he meets a very old woman he seeks aid from. She however issues him with a condition if she tells him the answer to his query, she asks him to grant her a request at any time she pleases, and they together head towards the palace after he agrees to her conditions. After arrival at the palace, the knight tells the queen that women seek sovereignty over their husbands, which is the answer that the queen was looking for. The old woman claims her request and asks the knight to marry her, which he adamantly protests. However, because they had agreed to such terms the knight is forced to marry her the following day. During their first night of marriage, the knight is discontented given her hideous apprearance old. She asks him to make a choice between her appearance and characterand being beautiful and promiscuous. He gives her the appropriate answer, she is impressed with his mastery, immediately changes, and becomes beautiful, and they live in marital bliss ever after. The tale clearly shows satire in that the knight had journeyed for over a year in pursuit of an answer as to what women want than anything else in life. He is lucky enough to find a woman with the right answer for his question as he heads back to the palace to meet his fate of death. The literature work is clearly satirical in that the knight was able to escape the consequences of a crime punishable by death by being given a task that many people would regard as simple. The knight is also witty enough to manage to give his new aged bride an answer that prompts her to change and become beautiful and fair. The text is also satirical enough in that the knight was heading back to the castle whereas he faced imminent death due to his crime instead of running away. Various themes also come into play in the text. The presence of crimes against women is not punished adequately, and this clearly shows that crimes against women are casually handled. Social prejudice against women is depicted in the works in that the old woman was living all by herself in the woods, and the young man thought of her as ‘very ugly and low born’, showing that people who are perceived as ugly are not given the chance to coexist with other people. Bath’s wife also depicts ant ifeminism, in that she remarries severally that their culture was based on antifeminist traditions. Morality also becomes an issue because Alison, Bath’s wife, claims that ‘For hadde God commanded maydenhede. Thanne hadde he dampened weddying with the dede’, meaning that had God found it necessary to condemn marriage and procreation he would have commanded virginity. She also says, â€Å"How pitously a-nyght I made hem swynke!† (Chaucer and Malcolmson, 1964) This clearly shows that she had disregard for sexual morality, and was very promiscuous to a point of noting such from the Bible. Her sexual immorality is also depicted by the fact that she has married several men, and does not seem to think that she will fully settle with one husband. Religion is another theme that comes into play in that Alison has the audacity to refer to the Bible with her promiscuity in mind as also shown in the words, †As help me God, I laughe when I thynke’’ (Chaucer and Malcolmson, 1964). This shows that she still had regard for the Christian religion. Female dominance is also a theme that was shown in the text through the words, â€Å"Unnethe myghte they the statut holde/in which that they were bounden unto me/ye woot wel what I meene of this, pardee/How pitously a-nyght I made hem swynke!† meaning that men must prove to Alison that they can satisfy her sexual appetite before they can have her as a wife (Chaucer and Malcolmson, 1964). Materialism is also a theme that is recurrent in the text in that Alison weighs love from men in economic terms. The use of words such as ‘dette’ meaning debt, ’paiement’ meaning payment show that she regards affection in monetary terms, thus she is very materialistic. Such terms may be used to conclude that she is a prostitute. In her statements, she seems to conclude that ‘love’ as an act that warrants ‘paiement’ in her own works (Chaucer and Malcolmson, 1964). Preferred behavior in marriage is also a theme that is brought forth in that she does not act as a real wife would. She says that she is used to telling lies to her former husbands and how they get drunk and saying some very insulting words. In conclusion, it would be easier to say that the Chaucer’s main purpose was to show what the role of a woman should be by giving the audience an example of the opposite of a good marriage. He also wanted to show the effects of infidelity in marriage, whereby it leads to separation and sexual immorality as individuals seek sexual gratification. References Chaucer, G. and Malcolmson, A. B. (1964). A taste of Chaucer: Selections from the Canterbury tales. New York: Harcourt, Brace World.

ACT Expert Guide Whats the Highest Possible ACT Score

ACT Expert Guide What's the Highest Possible ACT Score SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips What is the highest possible score on the ACT, and how rare is it to get one? Whether you're just now diving into your ACT prep or have been at it for a while, you're probably wondering what the best score is. In this guide, we’ll explore the odds of earning the maximum ACT score and give you tips and advice for reaching it. What Is a Perfect ACT score? The highest possible score you can earn on the ACT is 36(on a scale of 1-36). This 36 is a composite, or average, of your four subject area scores- English, Reading, Math, and Science.Each section is also scored on a scale of 1-36. (If you take the ACT with Writing, your essay willnot affect your composite score. This means you can get a perfect 36 without earning a perfect essay score of 12.) The 36 points you can earn on each section are scaled scores, which are translated from your raw scores- that is, the total number of questions you get right on each ACT section. (For more information about how each ACT section is scored, see our article on ACT scoring.) The magic number. So just how rare is a perfect 36? According to ACT, Inc., out of the 1,914,817 students in the class of 2018 who took the ACT, only3,741earned the highest possible ACT score. That’s just 0.195% of test takers! If you’re looking to be part of that 0.195%, keep reading to learn the raw ACT scores you'll need for each section- and why it’s possible to get a perfect score without answering every single question correctly. The Composite ACT Score Needed for a 36 Your composite score on the ACT is the most important part of your score, since it represents your overall performance. When people refer to a perfect ACT score, they are talking about a perfect 36 composite. However, since your composite ACT score is calculated from the average of your four subject area scores- not the total- you do not need a perfect 36 on every section to get a perfect 36 composite. For example, say you got the following subject area scores: English: 36 Reading: 36 Math: 36 Science: 34 This means your composite would be as follows: (36 + 36 + 36 + 34) / 4 = 35.5 Because you can only get whole numbers- not decimals- for your composite ACT score, this score of 35.5 would round up to the best ACT score of 36. This is a slight difference from the SAT, for which your composite score comes from all the sections being totaled, not averaged. To get a perfect score on the SAT, you need a perfect score on every section.For the ACT, you can have a slightly less than perfect score on one or two sections and still net a 36 composite! The Raw Scores Needed for a Perfect ACT Score While it’s possible to get a 36 composite without getting a 36 on each ACT section, if you're truly aiming for a 36, you should study with the goal of getting a 36 on each section. But why? First of all, this will help you focus your studying on becoming 100% consistent. If you study with the allowance of making a few mistakes, any additional mistakes you make will definitely cost you the 36. But if you study with the goal of getting a 36 on each section, if you do end up making one or two mistakes, you could still net a 36 composite. This official chart estimates how raw ACT section scores will translate into scaled scores. Based on this official chart, you need to aim for a perfect raw score- that means answering every single question correctly- on both Reading and Science to get a 36. Meanwhile, you can miss one question each on the English and Math sections and still get a 36. While these estimates show it is possible to get 74 raw points on the English section and 59 points on the Math section and still get a 36 composite, this could change depending on how the ACT you end up taking is scaled. (This is becauseeach test is scaled a little bit differently- check out our guide to ACT conversion chartsto learn more about how this process works.) Ultimately, the only way to guarantee a 36 is to get a perfect raw score in every section. How to Get Perfect Raw ACT Scores to Guarantee a 36 If you're aiming for a perfect ACT score, the best way to do this is to aim for a perfect raw score on every ACT section (in other words, aim to get every single question right!). Here, we go over our top tips to help you do just this. #1: Be Consistent and Maintain Your Stamina Since you're aiming for a perfect raw ACT score on every section, you must be able to achieve perfection during studying and while taking practice tests. This is especially important for developing better test-taking stamina and efficiency. Even if you're capable of answering all the questions in a section correctly, to get a perfect 36 on the ACT, you will have to be able to work within the allotted time.Here is an overview of the time limits per ACT section: ACT Section Total Time # of Questions Time per Question English 45 minutes 75 36 seconds Math 60 minutes 60 60 seconds Reading 35 minutes 40 52.5 seconds Science 35 minutes 40 52.5 seconds For the Math section, you get exactly one minute per question. For English, Reading, and Science, you get less than a minute. This intense pacing is why it’s so important to aim for speed and accuracy while studying. #2: Find Your Weak Spots Our second tip is to use ACT practice questions and exams to find your weak areas- whether they are trigonometry questions on the Math section or the social science excerpt on Reading. Try to figure out where the gaps in your knowledge are and why you are answering certain questions incorrectly. Once you know exactly where you struggle, you can target your studying. To get a 36, you must learn the concepts behind the questions you struggle with the most, and develop systems and strategies for solving those question types. With enough studying, your weak links could become strengths. #3: Don’t Get Complacent Although you will spend a good deal of time on your weak spots, never assume that you have a section in the bag.For example, even if you're amazing at math and got a 36 on your first official practice test, don't neglect the Math section when you study. Taking practice tests can help you become familiar with the pacing you will need on test day, and they'll also help you spot any careless mistakes you tend to make. #4: Prevent Careless Mistakes Although the bulk of your studying will be spent addressing stubborn weak spots, make sure you are on the lookout for where you make small mistakes. That could be anything from skimming too fast and missing the point of a question, to an arithmetic error on Math, to even bubbling in an answer incorrectly. Want more strategies on how to get the maximum ACT score? Read our detailed guide to getting a 36. Key Takeaways: Aiming For the Maximum ACT Score Although it will be tough to study for that perfect 36 ACT score- after all, only 0.195% of test takers achieve it!- it's not impossible. Keep in mind, too, that although a 36 composite is considered perfect, a composite score of 34 or higher is already in the 99thpercentile of test takers. In other words, if you get a 34+, you have done better than 99% of students who take the ACT. That's a great accomplishment! Studying using the principles in this article and aiming for perfection can definitely help you get a 99thpercentile ACT score- which isn't too shabby, even for a perfectionist. What's Next? Want a more in-depth guide to getting a perfect ACT score? Read our guide on how to score a 36, written by a 36 perfect scorer. Aiming for a top-tier school? Learn what ACT scores it takes to get into the Ivy League. Not aiming for a perfect ACT score? You'll still need to figure out what score you should aim for, and get the best one you can. Read our step-by-step guide to calculating your personal ACT target scoreto get started. Want to improve your ACT score by 4+ points? We've written a free strategy guide to the top strategies you should be using in your studying. Download it now: