The Wife of Bath Essay

The two tales, told by the Wife of Bath and the Clerk in The Canterbury Tales, have parallel plots. “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” begins with a

Using direct characterization, Chaucer describes the Wife of Bath, saying that she is deaf on one ear, had five husbands, is an old hand at pilgrimages, gap-toothed, and large: “A rug was tucked around her buttocks large, and on her feet a pair of sharpened spurs.” She was also good at making cloth. Chaucer also uses indirect characterization to identify the wife of Bath as worldly in both senses, meaning she has seen the world, and have experienced it. Her clothes are extravagant, which shows and symbolizes how much wealth she has. Chaucer describes her as a very talkative woman, especially arguing with other people. This character personifies Chaucer’s idea of what a lustful woman looks like. She is fun-loving, although prideful, and since she might be widowed, she has the freedom to run her own business and travel the world. This indicates two things: her husband doesn’t know she’s doing it, or her husband does not exist at

Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales presents several interesting characters, of which the most interesting is the Wife of Bath. A stand-out character meant to generate a shocking response from the reader, the Wife of Bath is both headstrong and blunt, especially for a woman of her time. Although the Wife of Bath clearly is educated in Biblical passages due to her many references to the Bible in her tale’s prologue and tale, the basis of her argument—that women should gain total sovereignty in marriage by using sex as their weapon to gain dominance—is actually undermined by her Biblical examples and her own description of her fifth marriage.

Wife of Bath’ challenges those ideas. -Chaucer uses support from the bible and logic to make his point. Thesis: Through the Wife of Bath, in both her Prologue and her Tale, Chaucer introduces the modern-day notion that women are entitled to remarry and fulfill their intimate desires and to demand that their wants and unique wisdom be respected by men. II.

With her first four husbands, she conforms to the antifeminist stereotype where “she wins money by marrying repeatedly and cajoling, browbeating, or outliving her husbands” (Minnis 250). The Wife of Bath married due to her obsession with money, as if indicating that love is not a feeling that a strong, independent woman can possess. However, with her fifth husband, she admits that “although he’d beaten me on every bone / Quickly he’d win back my love for his own / I believe that I loved him best since he / Could be standoffish with his love for me” (Chaucer 517-520). She was easily able to get love from her first three husbands, but her fifth husband who is younger than her is the only one that she admits to truly loving. It is odd that the

The religious value is reflected through Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue” through

The Wife of Bath, one of the many characters in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, is a feminist of the fourteenth century. Chaucer, in the "General Prologue," describes her as promiscuous. The Wyf confirms this claim in the prologue to her tale, the longest in the book. An analysis of the "General Prologue" and the "Wyf's Prologue" reveals a direct relationship between the Wyf of Bathe and the characters in her tale, such as the knight, queen, and ugly woman.

The different tales all portray slightly different marriage power systems, some of which were very foreign in the times of the book. The Wife of Bath’s tale shows a marriage power structure which is completely controlled by women, physically and mentally. The Merchant’s tale conveys a marital environment which women are used as objects by men, and marriage as a whole is seen as a duty to spread family estate. The Clerk’s tale represents a marriage which is completely controlled by the husband, and the wife has little power if any at all. The Franklin’s tale conveys a situation which power in the relationship is run by both wife and husband, and built on “true free love”.

During the prologue of The Wife of Bath’s Tale, the wife discusses her thoughts on roles between males and females within relationships. She discusses this idea by hitting on two different points of view, power and religious ideology. The wife talks about all five of her marriages and how she gained power and control within those relationships by using her body;

In the Canterbury Tales, The Wife of Bath gives the reader an understanding of her stance on marriage and how she perceives the world. Throughout her five marriages, the Wife has learned a great deal. As her marriages progressed, there is a shift in power both physically and emotionally. Throughout her marriages she has a sense of authority and uses it to her advantage to gain satisfaction within her relationships. Historically the man is portrayed as the head of marriage, but the Wife of Bath shows that is not always the case.

all she has been married five times).  Just as men use the bible to justify

It is evident that the Wife of Bath is one of the most intriguing characters in The Canterbury Tales. This is shown through the way she is presented by Chaucer. Chaucer, as he introduces the pilgrims, uses her as a superlative example of her profession. She is described as a deaf but talkative woman who wears the best clothing, hosiery, and shoes, a woman who is experienced in more ways than one. With the description given of the Wife of Bath, she is read as a strong, independent woman, mainly due to how different she is in comparison to other women of the time.

The Role of women in the Canterbury Tales In the Canterbury Tales Chaucer made his female characters very intricate and made them have personalities much different from the men. The female characters in the Canterbury Tales are very unlike the women of that time and have unique qualities (Mann). Since these female characters are so different, it has been an argument for many years about Chaucer’s take on women and how he perceives them. The way he perceives them can be determined through the way he makes his female characters, personalities, and the way they look in the Canterbury Tales.

In “ The Wife of Bath Prologue” The Wife of Bath talks about how she was married five times at the doors of the church. This is a historical element because in medieval times it was not uncommon for girls to be married as young as twelve. As the prologue goes on it talks about the social aspect of the bible where The Wife of Bath say that “ A holy man Abraham, I know, And Jacob, too, as far as that may go, Yet each with more than two wives came to dwell”( Chaucer, Lines 55-61).

Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath Prologue is a text which employs the female voice through an exaggerated female narrator who believes her life experience provides her the authority necessary to weigh in on the conflict that is marriage and a woman’s role within that marriage. Upon further analysis one may argue that