Chaucers Canterbury Tales Essay - The Wife of Bath and the Ideal Woman

The wife of Bath and the Ideal Woman The Wife of Bath is one of Chaucers most memorable characters. In the General Prologue, she is described as a somewhat deaf, voluptuous, married woman. She is a clothing maker, has a gap tooth, the sign of a lust nature, and she wears brilliant red stockings. Her fantastic description alone sparks interest, a spark that is later fanned into fire when her prologue is read. The Wifes outlandish description of her marriages makes her unique and memorable among the pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales, most of which are identified by conventional occupation. Chaucer has designedly made the Wife a notable character by giving her life many unconventional twists. Her marriages are contradictory, and her personality is at odds with the gothic view of women Chaucer creates her in order to show that this woman, however rare and unique she is, cannot openly struggle for equality and independence. Her prologue gives the reader the notion that, when Alison is talking about herself, Its a bit like an anti-confession, with her saying this is what Im like, theres no way Im going to change (Beer 8). This is her initial portrayal, but at the end of her prologue, the Wife of Bath succumbs to the pressure of society, conforms and becomes the example medieval wife. The Wifes marriages, when viewed in order, show her struggle for power and her surrender to authority. In the first few lines the reader learns that Alison was married five times. Her five husbands represent the progression of a woman from a power-hungry girl to a submissive spouse. Her five husbands can be divided into two groups, the first group consisting of the Wifes first cardinal husbands. Of this first group she says, Th... ... Mark. The Wife of Bath and Womens Power. Assays 4 (1987) 67-83. Bott, Robin. The Wife of Bath and the Revelour Power Struggles and Failure in a Marriage of Peers. Medieval Perspectives 6 (1991) 154-161. Carruthers, Mary. The Wife of Bath and the P ainting of Lions. PMLA 94 (1979) 209-18. Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Riverside Chaucer. Ed. Larry Benson. 3rd ed. Boston Houghton, 1987. Crane, Susan. Alisons Incapacity and Poetic Instability in the Wife of Baths Tale. MLA 102 (1987) 20-27. Leicester, Jr., H. Marshall. Of a fire in the minacious Public and Private Feminism in the Wife of Baths Tale. Womens Studies 11.1-2 (1985) 157-78. Oberembt, Kenneth. Chaucers Anti-Misogynist Wife of Bath. The Chaucer Review 10 (1976) 287-302. Patterson, Lee. Chaucer and the Subject of History. Madison University of Wisconsin Press, 1991.