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Character Analysis Of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Wife Of Bath

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Geoffrey Chaucer is remembered as the author of "The Canterbury Tales", which is thought to be the greatest piece of writing in the whole world. Chaucer made a vital contribution to English literature at that time when the major language was French or Latin. Geoffrey Chaucer was an English poet and born in London. He was the son of a wealthy wine merchant .He got his early education in French, Latin, and Greek. Despite of, his too many jobs as a courtier, knight, diplomat, civil servant, but he gained fame as a poet. Chaucer also helped in standardizing the London Dialect of the Middle English language.
The work from which Chaucer gained the fame in the world of literature was ‘The Canterbury Tales’. It is a descriptive poem containing a description of 30 pilgrims: aristocratic, poor, pious, hypocrites, traders and adventurers. Socially, all pilgrims belong to different professions and social classes. He uses a dramatic style, irony, sense of jumbling, humor, sarcasm and old English while writing this outstanding slice of literature. It is a rhyming couplet. The major theme of this tale is love of …show more content…

She had had five husbands. The Wife of Bath is a most charming character in the prologue. She thinks only of herself and loses her temperament, if anyone dares to precede her in offering the prayer. From her perspective, men should give all rights to the females in the married life. She is extremely religious, but has a conflict with the church of the time, especially about re-marriage. This shows her eagerness to go against the society, but she cannot go against the society because after all, she is a female living in the dark ages. She views men as feeble and weak, but she still wants them in her life. Chaucer wants to represent that no matter how much a woman is powerful and dominating, but it is still the man that grants her the power and decides her

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Chaucer’s Portrayal of the Wife of Bath The Wife of Bath presents the reader with a woman who compiles to the stereotypes corresponding with the negative misogyny of women during the medieval times. Wife of Bath is viewed the same as this stereotypical woman. Some can agree with Chaucer’s choice of these negative traits of The Wife of Bath, but the same conclusion is always met. Chaucer chooses to display the Wife of Bath as a misogynistic symbol of negative traits in order to use her as an object of mockery.

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Geoffrey Chaucer, considered one of the greatest English poets in the Middle Ages, composed The Canterbury Tales in the late fourteenth century. In the novel twenty-nine men and women representing all aspects of Medieval society embark on a religious pilgrimage to the cathedral at Canterbury in southeast England. On their journey their host engages them in a storytelling contest with a free meal as the prize upon their return. Chaucer wrote the tales in Middle English, the vernacular of the Medieval period, making his work accessible to all classes of people.

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Chaucer characterizes The Wife of Bath as controlling and powerful. The Wife of Bath was a complete contradiction of the typical female, during this time. The average woman was submissive and reserved. Whereas, The Wife of Bath possessed character traits that one would associate with men. Chaucer emphasizes this trait by describing her in such ways one would describe a man.

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So there is really no one else to hurt you and he will do no more than take your virtue.” (53-56) Which means that those with high class or friars would rape women that were alone. In both stories, Chaucer shows how corrupt the political leaders were in his

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The Wife of Bath believed that women should take mastery over their men (Pg. 914). She had five husbands and thought she knew how to control men. She also believed that experience, not authority by gender, should be respected in society. She also believed that members of the church who could not marry or consummate, knew less of sex and therefore, not as experienced or educated on sexuality as she.

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The Wife of Bath and her tale are the most similar out of all the tales because they both share a domineering outlook over others. In the general prologue she is told to have had five husbands and is described as a looker, “Her face was bold and handsome and ruddy,” (Chaucer 39). In her prologue she goes more in depth of her time spent with her five husbands. Wife of Bath talks most about how she gains control over her husbands. For instance, her fifth husband was the controlling force in their marriage until he made the mistake of hitting her and telling her he would do anything to keep her with him and said, “My own true wife, do as you wish for the rest of your life…” (335).

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Geoffrey Chaucer, an English poet during the middle ages, wrote The Canterbury Tale’s Wife of Bath; he was born from a humble middle-class family and climbed his way up through the aristocracy. The Wife of Bath main protagonist is molded by a sexist culture of her times. My goal with this paper is to shed light on The Wife of Bath’s main character. A story of a smart, strong-willed woman who manipulates her way to financial and personal independence, is she a feminist or a smart and scheming woman?

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Geoffrey Chaucer has greatly influenced English literature with many of his works. He comprised more than twenty tales in his most famous collections The Canterbury Tales. There are several of his many tales that expresses love, marriage, and romanticism to display an important message. The Merchants Tale in particular refers marriage and love between the characters. First, the story introduces the narrator Chaucer, whom tells the story of a knight.

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In the book of Wife of Bath’s Tale, Geoffrey Chaucer shows the role of a woman being weak creatures while men are economically powerful and educated. Women are seen as inheritor of eve and thus causes

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Chaucer also uses satire in a more comical way to illustrate how women can’t keep a secret. The Wife of Bath reveals this trait when she says “by heaven, we women can’t conceal a thing” (Chaucer 341), mocking the suggestion that women have an inability to keep a secret. Chaucer also makes fun of the knight’s condition using the irony of women being incapable of keeping a secret as the only thing that can save him. Mocking women and their incapability to not share private information only further reveals Chaucer’s satire.

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The Wife of Bath is displayed as strong, independent, and unconcerned with any social standards she may or may not be held to. When explaining the Wife of Bath Chaucer details,“Bold was her face, and handsome; florid too. She had been respectable all her life, And five times married, that’s to say in church, Not counting other loves she’d had in youth”(Chaucer 14). Multiple clothing items add onto her attitude of self-determination and power, as she is described as wearing a hat that resembled a shield, and sharp spurs on her feet (Chaucer 15). With the Wife of Bath being described as a mistress with multiple husbands, one would expect her to be characterized as a scheming harlot that men should be wary of (as was common in medieval misogynist tales).

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Geoffrey Chaucer was an author, known as the father of English poetry for his recognition in all his literary works. He wrote the Canterbury Tales, which are multiple stories composed into one to create a form of poetry. "The Pardoners Tale" is the most recognized work of art he put together out of these multiple stories. The story is told in first person, which makes use of the story to lecture against the individuals who are ignorant, and profane. In this short tale about eagerness, but also death, Chaucer uses three forms of figurative language such as irony, personification, and symbolism to tell a story of three rioters.

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The Wife of Bath: An Analysis of Her Life and Her Tale The Wife of Bath’s Prologue stays consistent with the facts that experience is better than the societal norms, specifically those instilled by the church leadership. Chaucer uses the Wife of Bath to display the insanity of the church, but through switching and amplifying their view of men and chastity onto the opposite gender. The church doctrine at the time held celibacy in an idolized manner, forgetting the inability for humans to ever reach perfection, or live up to this standard. They also did not hold women in a high regard at all, again this is where Chaucer flips the role, as the Wife of Bath describes her five marriages in her prologue, essentially describing each as a conquest, where the result is her having all control.

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A story that reflects a timeless issue of equality, morals, and lesson on what women really desire. The Wife of Bath by Geoffrey Chaucer is a story in The Canterbury Tales that expresses multiple moral lessons and an exciting dialogue that provides an entertaining story. The two stories that will be examined today are the “Pardoners Tale” and “The Wife of Bath”, after much evaluation I believe that “The Wife of Bath” is the better story. This is the better story because it’s more entertaining and also has more morals with better quality.

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However, the Wife of Bath is described in the prologue as being independent because she travels on her own and “[knows] much of wandering by the way” (467). In her tale, the wife says, “women most desire… sovereignty/ [over] their husbands or the ones they love” (1038-1039). Based on her label as wife, readers

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