Throughout the chapter, Dr. Seaman highlights several instances of voices being “redirected by those in power, forced to become something they are not, and ultimately silenced.” This can be seen through the wife’s lack of voice, the wife’s murder, and the bird’s loss of his song/speech. While The Manciple’s Tale credits this as a moral lesson that “Teaches a man to guard his tongue well” (lines 315), the act of silencing also draws many comparisons to Manne’s belief that silencing can be an act of misogyny. With these modern interpretations of silencing in mind, consider the fates of the wife and the bird. To what extent do their punishments represent an act of misogyny? To what extent do they represent a warning of poor morality?

According to Manne’s Historical Claim (#4), “historically oppressed people” typically endure mistreatment “due to their not being seen as full human beings in the first place, or [being] dehumanized shortly thereafter, often due to the influence of dehumanizing propaganda” (p. 145). Do we see any examples of this mistreatment and/or dehumanization of female characters in Chaucer’s Clerk’s Tale? If so (or if not), what does this imply about the text and its greater historical context?