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Wife Of Bath Satire

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In the middle ages society was dominated by the male population. As men went to school, or to work, women stayed home. They were simply mothers and housewives, with exceptions to very few. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote a frame story called The Canterbury Tales, within the stories, his humor points towards the exposure of the many societal flaws of his time. He uses satire to show how women were portrayed. The character the wife of bath, is used as a tool for satire. Chaucer uses the irony of how she freely speaks of sex, the description of her character to be gap-toothed, and her personality being honest, witty, and funny, to challenge the church’s corruption. Before The Wife of Bath tells her story, she goes through stating her prologue. Within her prologue she describes each of her husbands, how she viewed them, and how they treated her. She was married in a total of 5 times. In response to the question should people remarry, she states that she has never seen such a number saying how many times it is acceptable, defined. She doesn’t think evil of it. …show more content…

A pilgrimage is a religious journey or expedition. It is satirical and ironic that The wife of Bath is the way she is because she is intentionally described in a shockingly explicit way. It’d be assumed by readers that people who take a pilgrimage are religiously oriented and stay away from sin. “And she had thrice been to Jerusalem, Seen many strange rivers and passed over them; She’d been to Rome and also to Boulogne, St. James of Compostella and Cologne, And she was skilled in wandering by the way”(Chaucer 473-4770). In this quote, in his introduction of The wife within the prologue, he shows how this is not her first pilgrimage. She’s been on many. Based on her stories, she is sinful and doesn’t follow the bible, but uses the bible as justification for her actions. She preaches that she is good to god and her faith but she is

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