Wife Of Bath Essay

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, he introduces a character known as the Wife of Bath. It is her turn to tell the stories, and her tale begins discussing her past marriages in the prologue. Married five times, the Wife of Bath tells us about her own marital issues, and the way she was able to manipulate the gender roles to her own advantage. As interesting of a character as she is, I find Chaucer created the Wife of Bath to deliberately introduce the issues gender roles play in our society. I believe that the role the of the Wife of Bath in the tale was purposely written by Chaucer to twist the traditional gender roles of the time, satirizing how gender plays in society.

In the stories of The Wife of Bath and Queen Guinevere from the tale of King Arthur, both women of nobility and are strong characters. The Wife of Bath is a woman who likes to be known in the upper class and enjoys and parties. Queen Guinevere “is more passionate and caring,” she takes her royal status for granted. In the Middle Ages, these two women did not fit the idea of how women were to act or think towards their roles as women in that time period.

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 Wife of Bath’s Tale” is an important part of his most famed work, The Canterbury Tales. One of the most respected highly analyzed of all of the tales, this particular one is important both for its character development and its prevailing themes. It seamlessly integrates ideas on society at that time with strong literary development. This work stands the test of time both because of its literary qualities and because of what it can teach us about the role of women in late Medieval society.

The Wife of Bath 's Prologue and Tale is about female empowerment it shows strong protagonists. I believe Geoffrey Chaucer used The Wife of Bath’s Tale to advocate for feminism. Chaucer used a strong female character to expose female stereotypes. It was an oppressive time for women in male-dominated society. During the Middle Ages, Chaucer wrote from a woman’s point of view something that was not normal at that time. He set his feminist ideals through the characters of the Wife of Bath and the old woman. He used subtle methods like humor to show his ideals. During Chaucer’s time nobody was used to the idea of women being equal to men, this idea did not exist. Chaucer expressed his ideas in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale by being one of the first to understand and acknowledge a women’s struggle in society, through this tale he shows the difference between men and women and their positions of power. In the Wife of Bath’s Tale, feminism is showed by the knight recognizing and listening to his wife. Chaucer is a feminist for his time because he used humor to mask his unpopular ideas he used these characters to voice his opinions.

A bold and "worthy woman" is the Wife of Bath who considers herself the expert in marriage. Considering that she has been married more than once, her technique for maintaining the marriage has been successful. As long as she has full control, she is completely satisfied. Believing that this is the only way her marriage will be happy, she gains control over her husband. The Wife of Bath's belief that a good marriage is one in which the wife has power over the husband; a trait that she describes in her prologue and clarifies the point she made in The Wife of Bath's Tale.

In “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue,” the Wife proclaims that she is an authority on marriage because of her past personal experiences. She uses her sexuality as a tool used to dominate her past husbands into getting money, land, and her sexual desires. During the time where the story has taken place, men had control over women within marriage, work, and society overall. So the idea of having power over men was seen as liberating for women, especially for the Wife of Bath. For her first three husbands, they were described as “good” because they were rich and old, vulnerable for her to control.

In so much that the Wife of Bath fights back against the oppression against women, she in turn ends up treating her husbands in the same oppressive manner. It is interesting to note that in her rants against men being the controlling force in marriages, she herself was a bully to her husbands. This makes it difficult to interpret Chaucer's intentions in creating a strong women character advocating for her due rights. By vocalizing her thoughts and what were most likely many women's thoughts of his day, he gives an identity and power to those without a

The story of the Wife of Bath is one that has a prologue and tale containing descriptions of the Wife of Bath and how she lived her life. Throughout both the prologue and the tale, the woman constantly talks about herself and flatters herself by informing everyone of how she lived her life. Although some other people disagree with her life decisions and try to tell her so, she does not let that get in her way and instead she argues back until they tell her she is right. The Wife of Bath believed that she was always right, and if she actually was wrong, she would turn it on the other person and make them feel as if they were wrong so they would have pity for her and say she is right. Overall, the Wife of Bath was characterized as an anti-feminist

The Wife of Bath begins the Prologue declaring, “Experience, though noon auctoritee / Were in this world, is right ynogh for me / To speke of wo that is in mariage" (GP 1-3). She had her first marriage at the age of twelve, an important key in Chaucer’s usage of age to show how it affects the amount of control one can have in a relationship. She also gives a brief explanation of why she marries these five men by saying “Blessed be God, that I have wedded fyve; / (Of whiche I ... the beste, / Bothe of here nether purs and of here cheste.)” (WP 44-46) By saying this, the Wife makes it known that throughout her marriages that money and sex have been important factors.

After reading Chaucer’s work: “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”, and having been exposed to different interpretations of it, it is now to my knowledge that there have been many critical works that suggests opinions and thoughts about how to interpret both the tale and prologue. There have also been questions asked─one being, “so, did we actually figure out what women really want”, and the answer to that varies from person to person. One may say, I thought it was sovereignty, and another might say, no it is not because of how contradicting the tale and it’s prologue can be. Now, to add my two cents to the rest that already exists, I would

The Wife of Bath's greedy need for complete control over men reflects in most of her actions. She seems proud of this, and constantly describes women as cruel creatures that bring great sorrow to men. When talking about her first three husbands, she says that she "governed them" (193), and "chided them cruelly" (193). She makes life for her husbands a living hell, having no respect for their feelings. Just like the women questioned in her story, she cares only for "riches...amusement...rich apparel...," to be "flattered and pampered," and for "pleasure in bed" (225). When talking of her first three marriages, she says: "Since they had given me all their land, why should I take pains to please them, unless it be for my own profit and pleasure" (192). In her story, the moral is that all women want to hold the whip in a relationship, and it is in the man's best interest to let them do so. The Wife of Bath is not a woman to be admired and, worst of all, she insists all

example of the complicated nature of Chaucer’s belief system. On the one hand, we have many strong female characters that despite still being extremely dependant on the men in their lives, know what they want out of life. From a contrasting point of view, readers see a group of men, including Chaucer as the writer himself, making fun of the very nature of women as a whole. Is this really how Chaucer felt towards women, or is the prologue of The Wife of Bath’s Tale simply a parody of the opinions of his time?

He describes the Wife as a self-confident person who thinks highly of herself and had “been respectable throughout her life” due to her incredible skills as a cloth maker (Chaucer 461). She wore ten pounds of clothing that she wove herself. She loves showing off her cloth making expertise and is not shy at presenting herself in front of other people. Chaucer describes her physical appearance in ways that express a lustful and almost seductive person during this time period. The description of her clothing, legs, feet, hips, and her gap-tooth is an accurate representation of what seemed to attract a man to a lady during this time. She was a very open minded woman who adored the idea of love and marriage which can be proved by her “...five churched husbands bringing joy and strife” (Chaucer 462). She goes on pilgrimages to several different places which gives the impression that she is a devout Christian and portrays her as a religious woman. Chaucer’s description of the Wife of Bath makes the readers think about the other characters in the general prologue and how she is much different than the

However, there is a deviation in each the Prioress and Wife at Bath’s experiences. The Prioress represents a model of a “religious” person. She possesses good table manners and pretended to be rich. The Prioress also spoke a lower form of French. This indicates that she is educated. On the other hand, the Wife at Bath has had different life experiences that have molded her to become the women that she is in the story. The Wife at Bath has traveled to other pilgrimages throughout the Middle East. She has also had five different husbands, meaning she has had a heavy sexual experience, unlike the Prioress.