Characterization of Wife of Bath.

From the title the reader understands her status in society is Wife and she comes from the city of Bath. The narrator starts to characterize her how a “worthy woman”, so that she occupies an high position in society. Her little deafness is the unique lack, and it might reveal that she is not so young anymore.

In the third and fourth line the poet adds a piece of information about her occupation: "she skilled a clothmaker, that she outdistanced even the weavers of Ypres and Ghent", which were two important centres of Flemish weaving.

Going on reading the narrator is to the reader about her behaviour: she is vain and she becomes furious if somebody precedes her at the almsgiving. It means she wanted to be the best and that she wasn't so religious.

Also the narrator describes her way of dressing: she is rich, the Wife's clothes were by precious materials, her face is wreathed in heavy cloth, her stockings are a fine scarlet colour, and the leather on her shoes is soft and fresh demonstrating how wealthy she has become.

The poet after tells the reader also about her past: she has a lot of experience, she has travelled all over the world on pilgrimages, she has been married five times, "not counting other loves, she'd had in youth".

In the lasts lines Chaucer describes her way to ride a horse and the narrator underlines one more time the sensual aspect of the Wife of Bath: "she knew all the cures for love, for at that game she was a past mistress."

Finally the narrator makes up a characterization with irony of her overdressing, her extraordinary number of husbands, her behaviour which seems to contradict her respectability and her pilgrimage for a purpose which is probably anything but religious.