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The Wife Of Bath's Tale Conflict Essay

Decent Essays

Chaucer uses characterization and conflict to develop The Wife of Bath’s tale and her theme in the “Canterbury Tales”. Throughout these tales, The Seven Deadly Sins are present in each short story. The Wife of Bath’s Story is a very Lustful and Prideful story. Which also contains parts of Covetousness through the story, which all three sins conveniently go hand in hand.
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In the Wife of Bath’s case, her sins and miss deeds are clear as day in the text. Lust is a huge portion of the Wife of Bath’s sins. Lust is defined as “very strong sexual desire or passion.” The Wife of Bath uses sex as an instrument or tool to control each of her five husbands. The Wife of Bath does not only lust towards men but also her body she shows off her own “treasures” to get what she wants. “She had a flowing mantle that concealed large hips, her heels spurred sharply under that”. There is also a bit of greed in this tale, which is where covetousness comes in, because the wife of bath loves clothes. The definition of covetousness is “having or showing a great desire to possess something, …show more content…

He goes into detail about her appearance, and what she does in the first couple of sentences. “Her kerchiefs were of finely woven ground. In making cloth she showed so great a bent she bettered those of Ypres and of Ghent.” The Wife of Bath will never or should never be a woman who sets examples for single or even married women. The Wife of Bath decides to interpret the bible in another way she doesn’t listen to Jesus’s example of only marrying once, nor does she agree with his reproach to the woman at the well with five husbands. Instead, the Wife of Bath makes her own decisions to clarify the scripture in her own way. She prefers to go forth and multiply, defending her position by pointing to King Solomon, who had many wives, among other biblical figures who married more than

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