In The Wife of Bath’s Tale, Geoffrey Chaucer uses the tale as a fable to reveal the human nature of shallowness by its plot and characters. The story begins from the ancient days of King Arthur, when the “hero” of the story condemned sexual assault, but then was saved by an ugly woman. Chaucer created characters that are lusty, greedy, materially desires, and amazingly shallow in order to compare and comment on the lifestyle of the higher classes at the time.
From the start of the story, Geoffrey Chaucer illustrated how foolishly shallows the young Knight is in comparison to the upper classman. In an era of male domination, women have few political and legal rights; therefore, men tend to see women as properties and disrespect them. “He saw a maiden walking all forlorn/ Ahead of him, alone as she was born.
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At the end of the year of the Knight’s challenge, he met a woman who is, “ A fouler-looking creature I suppose/ Could Scarcely be imagined.” (168) From this description, Chaucer illustrated the shallowness of the Knight’s human nature, in which he naturally has the first impression on a woman base on the person’s outlook. Later, when the woman asked the Knight to marry her in return of saving his life, the Knight shallowly felt miserable to have to marry an “old, poor, ugly woman.” Not only he did not have gratitude toward the woman for saving his life, but also he abhors her look, age and wealth. The Knight told that even if his wife is faithful, good, and loyal, it does not make him any happier, if she is old, poor, and ugly. The Knight’s reaction might as well be cruel and harsh, but is exactly the prospect for every upper-class men at the time. They were expected to marry women that are beautiful or have a fortune. It is after all a superficial world that people, like the Knight, care most in the things that they can see or