The Tale of The Wife of Bath

Brianna BolandLaurel LorberMelissa MarkowichShelly Sodhi

The Prologue…

This autobiography fills the readers in on the Wife of Bath’s life before her tale begins. The Wife of Bath first

marries at age twelve. She has four more husbands later in her life and tells briefly of her experiences throughout these five marriages. She tells the reader that three of her husbands have been “good” and two of them have

been “bad.” The Wife of Bath says that virginity is left to the perfect and that the others should use their gifts. Her

gift, of course, is her sexual power, as she controls her husbands in every way that she can. She teases them and expects money after being in bed with them. The Wife of Bath is portrayed as unfaithful and full of sin, but she is

proud to tell her story.

The Tale…

The tale begins in the days of King Arthur, where elves and fairies were replaced by lustful people such as

friars who harmed women. The story goes on to tell of a knight who rapes a young maiden and is given one

chance to save himself from decapitation. The queen challenges the knight by giving him a year to figure out what women most desire. The knight learns that every woman he asks has a different answer to his question. Some women would love to have money, some want

fame, and some desire to be beautiful. Others told the knight that they would like to be viewed as trustworthy.

The Wife also tells Ovid’s story of Midas to prove that women cannot keep a secret. In this story, Midas shares a secret with his wife and trusts her not to tell anyone.

When his wife is unable to keep keep the secret to herself any longer, she goes to a marsh and tells it to the water. Later on, as the knight rides through the

forest, he asks another woman to tell him her greatest desire. The woman tells him that his life will be saved

and that women want to be in charge of their husbands. The queen agrees with this and the woman asks the

knight to marry her. He is not happy and his wife finally realizes the reason for this. She asks him why he treats

her poorly if she is his true love and if she is the one who saved his life. His wife gives him a choice: to be

with an ugly woman that is loyal to him or to have her, young and unfaithful. She is told to choose for him and

she becomes beautiful and loyal and good to him as well.

The Tale…

Title: The Wife of Bath

Author: Chaucer

Narrator: the Wife of Bath

Protagonist: the Wife of Bath

Genre: Arthurian Tale

Conflict: Man vs. Society

Theme: the empowerment of women

Setting: During the reign of King Arthur in England

Methods of Characterization

The author creates the character of the wife in the prologue through the use of the direct description…

“Her kerchiefs were of finest weave and ground; Her hose were of the choicest scarlet red. Bold was her face, and hair, and red of hue.”

Chaucer used the color scarlet red to intensify and show the wealth of the wife. The wife of bath does not seem

timid like the women of that time. In fact it can be understood that the color scarlet red when worn is used to illustrate someone who is opinionated and

confidant. Also the Wife’s clothes illustrate extravagance: her face is wreathed in heavy cloth, her stockings are a fine scarlet color, and the leather on her shoes is soft, fresh, and brand new—all of which

demonstrate how wealthy she has become.

The WifeThe Wife of Bath has her own views of Scripture and

God’s plan.

• She says that men can only guess and interpret what Jesus meant when he told a Samaritan woman that her fifth husband was not her husband. With or without this bit of Scripture, no man has ever been able to give her an exact reply when she asks to know how many husbands a woman may have in her lifetime.

• The Wife carelessly flings around references as textual evidence to support her argument, most of which don’t really correspond to her points. Many of her errors convey Chaucer’s mockery of the churchmen who often misused Scripture to justify their devious actions.

The Wife• She says God bade us to wax fruitful and

multiply. She admits that many great Fathers of the Church have proclaimed the importance of virginity, such as the Apostle Paul. But, she reasons, even if virginity is important, someone must be procreating so that virgins can be created.

• Leave virginity to the perfect, she says, and let the rest of us use our gifts as best we may—and her gift, doubtless, is her sexual power. She uses this power as an “instrument” to control her husbands.

The WifeThe wife exerts power over men.

• She uses words to manipulate her husbands

• She claims she will accuse her husband of having an affair and charge him with a bewildering array of accusations. If one of her husbands got drunk, she would claim he said that every wife is out to destroy him. He would then feel guilty and give her what she wanted.

• The Wife of Bath tells the rest of the pilgrims that what she told her husbands was a pack of lies. Her husbands never held these opinions, but she made these claims to give them grief.

• She teased her husbands in bed, refusing to give them full satisfaction until they promised her money. She admitted proudly to using her verbal and sexual power to bring her husbands to total submission.

Was the Wife the First Feminist?

Some question whether the Wife of Bath was the first feminist in literature.

• Because the statements that the Wife of Bath attributes to her husbands were taken from a number of satires published in Chaucer’s time, which half-comically portrayed women as unfaithful, superficial, evil creatures who were always out to undermine their husbands, feminist critics have often tried to portray the Wife as one of the first feminist characters in literature. The wife of bath has been interpreted as Chaucer’s deliberate moral satire upon the human, especially female, sexual appetite.

Symbol

The knights decision to allow the old woman to choose to remain ugly or to become beautiful is symbolic of the transfer of power from the male

to the female.

Motif Feminism, the empowerment of women

One example of the recurring theme of women’s empowerment is when the king

allows his wife to determine the fate of the knight. Another example is when the knight

lets the old woman decide whether she would rather be devoted and ugly or

beautiful and independent. Since the knight gave the woman sovereignty, she decides to be loyal and beautiful at the same time. The

feminist motif is also evident when the knight announces that he has learned that

what women truly desire is sovereignty over their men.

Simile

Similies help to better describe certain people, objects and events. They give the reader a more vivid picture of what an object looks like or what

something sounds like.

Examples:“As thick as motes are in a bright sunbeam”“As bittern booms in the quagmire”“The knight did not stand dumb, as does a beast”

Satire

There is debate over whether or not The Wife of Bath is an object of satire or an instrument of satire. The character of the wife could be a

stereotypical feminist who Chaucer uses to poke fun at womens’ empowerment. On the other

hand, Chaucer could have used the character’s vitality to promote feminism…

Allusion

The tale of The Wife of Bath makes references to writers such as Dante and Ovid.

“Well does that poet mise of great Florence, called Dante, speak his mind in this sentence”

“Think how noble, as says Valerius, was that same Tullius Hostilius, who out of poverty rose to high estate Serieca and Boethius inculate”

“Ovid, among some other matters small,said Midas had beneath his long curled hair”

Foreshadowing

In the prologue, Chaucer uses the technique of

foreshadowing to describe the way in which

the Wife of Bath’s fifth husband, Jankyn, treats her.

“Who- sad to say – was deaf in either ear”

Why include The Wife of Bath in The Canterbury

Tales?

The character of the wife is responding to a debate that had been going on for centuries regarding the place of

women in the universe and society. Through her experiences with her husbands, she has learned how to provide for herself in a world where women had little

independence or power.In the Medieval times woman were looked upon as property. They played no role in society other than

child bearing. The wife's tale is one of a struggle for power. In her relationships, the wife enjoyed having the power and control of her husbands. The knight

discovered what women desire most, and that is power.