The Wife of Bath from Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales Essay

Chaucer has created many characters in the Canterbury tales that he likes and many he dislikes. He is a very critical and detailed writer about these characters. With these characters, Chaucer has created real life issues with religious figures. Chaucer’s has showed how good religious figures can be and how corrupt they can be as well.

In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Chaucer begins with a description of twenty-nine travelers on a pilgrimage to visit the grave of the Saint of Canterbury. Chaucer purposefully makes The Wife of Bath stand out more compared to the other characters. In the General Prologue, the Wife of Bath is described in an explicit manner; her clothes, physical features and references to her past are purposely designed to be in sharp contrast to the Christian authorities regarding what was considered proper womanly behavior, while also alluding to her reasoning against the anti-feministic mind set.

monk, such as hunting, and roaming throughout life beyond monastery walls.  A quote that best describes the monk is:

Both the Pardoner and the Friar are portrayed as quick-thinking charlatans. Chaucer does seem to admire the Pardoner’s skill, and skilled he is, but his actions do not befit a man of the cloth. The Pardoner is spoken of as using bogus relics to con “poor up-country parsons” out of their hard-earned cash. These small hustles netted him “more in a day than the parson in a month or two”. When choosing his occupation, I’m sure the Pardoner did not see the light of the lord but rather, dollar signs. Chaucer goes on to say that yes, the pardoner did preach rather well and his stories were quite splendid, however that might be on account that he could “win money from the crowd”.

It was essentially their government and Chaucer wanted to point out all the flaws in it and how it should be, rather than how it is right now. He simply wanted people to know how the clergy is potentially doing more harm than good to people in their society. The clergy members in “The Prologue” reveal that the Catholic Church was immoral and unprincipled for the most part, everyone in the clergy had the intention of being good, however let their personal interests get into their way. Whether it was greed or deception that got in the way, it affected their effectiveness in society in some sort of way. However, Chaucer thought that the Parson is what everyone in the clergy should strive to be, not only did he fulfill his role in society but he went above and beyond and helped as many people as he could that were in

In Chaucer's tale, a friar that was supposed to hear the repentance of all sinners and speak God's word to everyone, but instead he would not be seen with beggars and lepers as they were beneath him. "To hold acquaintance with diseased lepers./ It isn't seemly, and it gets you nowhere,/ to have any dealings with that sort of trash,/ Stick to provision-merchants and the rich!/ And anywhere where profit might arise" (331, lines 245-249). He charged for hearing confession or performing marriage services rather than being of service to the people as he was entrusted to do as a man of the cloth. Chaucer was revealing the lack of integrity in the church during that

“The Wife of Bath’s Tale” in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is a story about a widow who took a pilgrimage to the town of Canterbury with an array of dynamic characters whose diverse backgrounds allowed them to share their stories with one another to make the long journey more interesting. The widow named Alison in the The Wife of Bath’s Tale told the tale of her experiences with her five past husbands and a story about a knight and a witch. She truly believed that for a woman to have a happy life she would need to gain dominion over a man; however one could assume this was programmed into her by her influential mother and her own religious doctrines. Accordingly, Alison argued that the woman must control everything in order

In his novel The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer presents the corruption of the Catholic Church through several of his characters. Chaucer lived in a time of controversial indulgences, a way to pay off sins. Chaucer’s tales show his opposition to these sinful behaviors that he believed were common among the clergy. In order to protest against sinful behavior and religious corruption, Chaucer uses characters such as the pardoner, the friar, the summoner, and the prioress to show the lack of morality and faith among the clergy, and presents the parson as an example of how to correct corruption of the Catholic Church.

control, "we hadde never debat" (P828). She has won this battle of wits, but it

Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales was written during a time of societal change, away from the stability of feudalism and towards an individualistic, mercantile economy. Feudalism consisted of a static, rural economy where every member had a duty to serve those above them. They valued the greater good and were not focused on gaining economically for their own personal benefit. An era of change, however, began as events such as the Crusades opened up trading opportunities which would eventually cause a shift in England, as the economy went from being land-based to money-based. A mercantile class was on the rise as well as capitalism. People were no longer driven to work by a sense of personal duty for the common good, but rather for their own social and economic gain. Corruption of the Church during this time as well increased, as church members were affected negatively by this changing economy. Many were driven by greed as well and took on immoral approaches towards their church positions. Vows and church teachings were disregarded as indulgences and materialism became the main focus of many in the clergy. Through his satirical portrayal of his characters in Canterbury Tales, Chaucer explores issues such as the changing economy and corruption of the church in order to expose and criticize the wrongdoings and values of his shifting society caused by the end of feudalism during this time.

The Medieval Period in history brought along scores of fables about everything from knights engaging in courtly love to corruption in the Catholic Church. The Canterbury Tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer expertly encapsulates many of the great motifs of the era. The Tales are a series of stories and descriptions of characters of all social classes that were composed in the late 1300’s. Chaucer utilizes a multitude of literary techniques to convey his personal views of people, and ultimately, what they represent in society. The author uses such devices when depicting two morally contrasting characters, the Parson and the Summoner, that are documented in the Prologue.

Chaucer's "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale" is a medieval legend that paints a portrait of strong women finding love and themselves in the direst of situations. It is presented to the modern day reader as an early tale of feminism showcasing the ways a female character gains power within a repressive, patriarchal society. Underneath the simplistic plot of female empowerment lies an underbelly of anti-feminism. Sometimes this is presented blatantly to the reader, such as the case of Janekin's reading aloud from "The Book of Wikked Wives" (The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale 691). However, there are many other instances of anti-feminism that may not scream so loudly to the reader. This

In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer gave the first literary depiction of a real woman with his character, the Wife of Bath. She was a revolutionarily and sexually explicit feminine figure. Chaucer experimented with narrative voice, irony, and rhetoric when crafting the contradictory image of the Wife of Bath in the general prologue, her autobiographical prologue, and her tale. The narrative voice in the Canterbury Tales is different in the general prologue, the pilgrims’ autobiographical prologues, and the tales themselves.

The medieval period is the period in history beginning with the Renaissance, literally meaning the “middle period” in history. Clothing, tradition, religion and lifestyle were viewed much differently than they are in today’s modern society. The best example of all the different types of people and their lifestyles is Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, in which he opens with a description of twenty-nine people going on a pilgrimage. The way people behave today allows readers to recognize each character's distinct personality. In the “General Prologue”, Chaucer describes the Wife of Bath in a way that is much different than how he describes the other twenty-eight characters. His use of imagery, word choice, tone and rhythm to describe the Wife lure

     The late 14th century church almost a disgrace to the meaning and reputation it was supposed to be upholding. This was not true for all of the church as is true all of Chaucer’s characters were not exact remakes of their real life counterpart. The clergy (Monk and Prioress and Friar) and other church related affiliates (Summoner and Pardoner) are made out to be corrupting the church. The Friar was a member of the mendicants, who were a group that traveled from town to town supposedly helping the poor this was however not what he did. The Summoner and pardoner were both not qualified for the positions they held and were in a sense stealing money from those that