Women have played a significant role throughout time and this is represented in many literary works, including Arabian Nights and Tales of Canterbury. In both of these works, women are shown to be very intelligent, savvy, manipulators, lovers, and fighters. From the beginning, women were thought to be liars and both the characters in the Arabian Nights and the Canterbury Tales have all these similar characteristics and themes. The main characters are Shahrazad and the Wife of Bath, Shahrazad is struggling to live while the Wife of Bath is simply traveling playing a storytelling game. Although in very different situations, both have the same strengths and similar characteristics, and this adds to show the role of women in the current times of the works and now. In the Arabian Nights, Shahrazad tries to change the king's way of life. killing the woman he slept with the night before. She lies to him and begins telling stories every night for the next three years. She manipulates him into wanting to listen to these stories for three years, and they end up having children and the king decides to let her live. Even if he lied, it was for his life, and any man or woman would lie to protect themselves from death. Shahrazad was smart to save her life and that of the rest of the women in her city. Its role was significant in saving women and helping them continue to reproduce and repopulate. If he hadn't done what he did, the king would have killed every woman, thus preventing his people from reproducing. Many women throughout history have shared the same strength and intelligence in achieving their freedom or showing their identity to men too. For example, presidents' wives would give them an idea... middle of paper... Bath and Shahrazad are very significant female characters who play important roles in relation to each other in two different but similar stories. Both women chose to use love to gain the power they desired, although one being young and the other elderly ultimately received exactly what they desired. Shahrazad is fighting to command the king not to kill her or more women in the city for his pleasure, and the Wife of Bath is playing while on her way to her pilgrimage with a group of people. Their similarities lie in the manipulation of men, the lies to protect what they want or love, and the strength of their situations in the stories. If these women had not been intelligent, strong-willed, or pursued what they desired, Shahrazad would have died after her one night with the king, and the Wife of Bath would have been poor and unhappy in her marriage..