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Within Horner’s chapter of Saint Lives,” it is noted that “When [Margaret] rejects the torturer’s advances, he responds by graphic threats of violence…” It is also stated that, “as [Margaret] prays to maintain her virginity, however, her literal body is being pierced and lacerated, literally opened up so horrifically…” What about Olybryus seems familiar from previous readings, particularly from Kate Manne’s Down Girl? What does the king’s focus on Margaret’s body and Margaret’s lack of concern for her mortal body say about each of them?

In her chapter “Saints’ Lives,” Shari Horner writes, “the public display of violence means that the body itself functions as a kind of text, not just to be seen or watched, but read and interpreted. Acts of torture produce marks on the body… The saint herself often invites or suggests the torture; she writes her own story…” (96). Do you think this could be seen as an act of feminism by turning the public scrutiny women’s bodies usually get into a way to create her own narrative? How does Margaret do this in her tale?

Based on the text, what do you think the moral of the Manciple’s Tale is? The narrator himself quotes his mother who says, “The first virtue, son, if though will learn, / Is to restrain and guard well thy tongue;” (332-333), suggesting that the takeaway is supposed to be to stay silent or be silenced. However, Phoebus’s wife, who never spoke, remained silent and was still silenced. Which message was your greater overall takeaway? Do you think that was intended to be the greatest takeaway? Or is this message intentionally left unclear and up to interpretation?

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?

On p.135, Manne defines sexual solipsism as regarding “the only human minds as male ones” (italics added). Based on what we know about Chaucer and what was said in The Clerk’s Prologue, would you say that sexual solipsism is foundational to this text?

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?

Harris goes into the less than stellar history Chaucer had with rape before both Canterbury Tales were written and contextually before his wife died. Given the information on medieval penalties from the Slate article, what effect do you think it had on Chaucer’s writing women and rape within the tale?

In the article Rape and Justice in the Wife of Bath’s Tale the author talks about pastourelles and the back and forth dialogue between man and woman. What does the lack of dialogue from the rape victim in the Wife’s tale imply about the way rape was viewed during this time?

Do you find the depiction of the Wife of Bath to be feminist or antifeminist?