THE WIFE OF BATH ANALYSIS - GEOFFREY CHAUCER

This is an extract from "The Canterbury Tales" by Geoffrey Chaucer. This part belongs to the General Prologue, where the narrator describes and presents all the protagonists who will take part in the pilgrimage and who will be the narrators of the tales. From the title, "The wife of Bath", the reader expects to read about a married woman coming from Bath.

The text is structured into verses. Lines are not linked by rhyming couplets; only in the second part of the extract the reader can find some lines tidied up by rhymes (for example lines 21-22, 25-26).

The first piece of information the narrator gives about this woman is about her social status, indeed she is a business woman. This is very strange considering the period when Chaucer writes. In the Middle Ages women helped their husbands in their work or were housewives, they didn't address to business neither they decided about their job. So right from the start the narrator creates curiosity in the reader. Going on reading we find out another important thing: she is a cloth maker and is so skilled that she overcomes even the weavers of Flemish countries. Despite being a woman, she worked alone and was better than anyone else. The second piece of information the reader gets is about her origin. She comes from Bath, a famous town in southern England. The narrator tells this at the beginning because pilgrims came from different parts of the country. Then he says she is a bit deaf, something not connected with the rest of the sentence. He makes this to diminish the reader's estimation of the woman. Then the reader describes her behaviour in the church. She was always the first to make offers and no one dared to precede her. If someone did it, she got furious, far distant from how a person should behave in a church. So the reader understands she is impulsive and aggressive and she always wants to be the first in everything she does. This idea is reinforced by the description of how she wears. She always wants to exaggerate, wearing the most precious, heavy, fine clothes. The narrator tells this using a series of superlatives (for example line 13). By the description of her clothes the reader starts to understand that the narrator wants to ridicule her and to create a caricature. Then the narrator describes her private sphere. Here the reader reinforces the idea that she is a peculiar woman. The narrator starts saying she was a respectable woman, but then he distorts the reader expectations saying she has married five times and had many lovers. She has always married in church and that means that all her husbands died, perhaps thanks to her. In line 18 the reader tries to cancel what he has said before, highlighting and focusing the reader's attention right on those concepts. The reader goes on describing another aspect of the woman's life which increases the reader's sensation of incoherence. Indeed, after having told the reader about all her love stories the narrator describes all the pilgrimages she has taken part in, which create the idea of a religious person, observant of Christian values and rules. These lines make the reader understand that in the Late Middle Ages people who practiced religion were corrupted and didn't observe its rules even if they regularly went to the church or did pilgrimages. These actions were done not for religious purposes. Indeed when she is in the church, the woman thinks only to show her importance and on pilgrimage she has sexual intercourses with other people she meets, as said in the following lines. The narrator tightly links her voyages to her sexual relationships, indeed the two pieces of information are expressed in the same line and she is described as a lascivious person. Then the narrator informs the reader about her behaviour during pilgrimages. She rides a horse and wears clothes of the latest fashion; she jokes with other pilgrims and makes them fall in love. All these aspects are far away from the usual behaviour a person should take on a pilgrimage and these highlights the great incoherence and superficiality that predominate in the woman's life.

This description demonstrates how women were seen during Medieval period. They were temptresses and dangers; they did not care of intellectual aspects but only of earthly and lascivious ones. The main aim of a woman was to show her beauty and to conquer new lovers. So Chaucer takes this idea and highlights it, creating a character that is almost a parody and a caricature.