Characterization of the Wife of Bath
Just considering the title of the characterization, the reader gets two important pieces of information about the character: the place she comes from and her social status: since she is a wife, she is married and she has got an husband. As a consequence, the reader can hypothesize her to love and respect her husband.
The first information the narrator provides in the text is that the character is a woman interested in business (she sells and buys things in order to make profict). She is probably a tailer belonging to the middle-class because she can do clothes very well. Since the character is skilled at her job, the reader becomes curious about her and the narrator goes on telling something different about her: this lady is really proud, she always wants to be the first, so she seems to be arrogant and superb. Now, the narrator goes on appealing to her life: she has been married numerous times and she has probably got sexual relationships with other partners; what's more, she knows everything about love and seduction. That's why the narrator describes her dresses: she wears unusual clothes in order to catch the other people's attention and seduce men (for example her red stockings represent passion). The narrator also quotes the places she visited, because she travelled a lot in her life.
Chaucer describes the woman as a lady who is everything but a faithful woman. Trough the characterization of the Wife of bath he wants to criticize ungoldy women who seduce men.