The Wife Of Bath Character Analysis

The Canterbury Tales is Geoffrey Chaucer’s most famous, celebrated and studied work. The praise come from its complexity and the elaboration of a group of tales within a story itself, creating ‘a layered narrative’ (Treharne 93). As a consequence, there are numerous characters: the pilgrims, who are the narrators of the tales, and those from the tales themselves. Both groups of characters have had many researches done about them, especially those who are more complex and illustrative of a specific ideology. One of those very discussed characters is the female pilgrim, Alisoun, or as she is commonly known, the Wife of Bath. She has not only been featured in many studies, but she has also created many debates along the years. The discussions

She expresses and embodies very strong ideas concerning marriage and women’s freedom and rights. Some of her opinions were considered very problematic in a medieval context, which is why she is one of Chaucer’s most controversial characters among scholars. The Wife is very opinionated, and she supports her ideas with some convincing strategies showcasing her uncommon knowledge. However, one has to keep in mind that the Wife of Bath is a character created by a male author, and thus she represents a certain view he had of women. As a result of that, as it has been observed by some scholars, she is a problematic character. Her discourse is quite limited and her arguments lack sometimes a cogent defence of women. Nevertheless, she still remains one of the characters closest to being a proto-feminist in medieval literature, especially when written by a male author. One can then argue that the Wife of Bath is a problematic and paradoxical protofeminist figure, who through her discourse shows the limits and restrictions imposed by a medieval misogynist society on

All the places mentioned are known for their pilgrimages, which indicates her stable economic position, as well as her knowledge and interest for intellectual subjects. It is impressive that as a woman she has enough means to go to all those place by herself, and that she shares intellectual interests with cleric men. These characteristics about herself and her life highlight her extravagance, as well as her experience and independence. As critics have stated ‘her portrait in the General Prologue emphasizes the expansive quality of her experience’ (Gottfried 205), and ‘all the facts about her personality, life and ethics … confirm both her weirdness and the undeniable attention her creator has taken in depicting her extravagance’. (Dor 139). Moreover, the excessiveness of her character is not only depicted in the General Prologue, it is also accentuated by her own prologue. First of all, unlike the other pilgrims, the Wife gives an introduction particularly long (856 verses), that is actually longer than the tale itself. If the length of the prologue is already extensive, the content of it reinforces the Wife’s status as the most extravagant character. Her introduction has an autobiographical nature to it, since it is full of references to her own life and opinions. She tells the audience the stories of her five husbands, she gives life advices to the ‘wise wyves’ (225), and she expresses her