THE WIFE OF BATH, Geoffrey Chaucer

The Wife of Bath is one of the characters going on a pilgrimage to Canterbury that Geoffrey Chaucer introduces into the prologue to the Tales.
Right from the title the reader understands that it refers to the woman’s status and that the character is on town Bath, a tourist resort of England.
The characterization is organised in two rhyming-couplets.
The introduction of the character underlines that the woman was “worthy”.The adjective “worthy” adds value to the character and is underlined by the alliteration of sound “w”.The narrator informs the reader that she comes from Bath and that she was unfortunately deaf. Therefore right the start the main piece of information the reader brings with her/him is that the Wife of Bath is a worthy person. The insistence on the repetition of the “w” sound underlines that the introductory peculiarity of the woman is her value, immediately followed by the narrator’s reference to her ability in “making cloth”. Such ability also results from the comparison between “her bent” and the skills of the best weavers in the countries.
The intelligent reader immediately realizes the narrator likes underlining her great and positive results. She is not only worthy but she has “ so great a bent”(line3), “she bettered”. All these choices underline the narrator’s intention to make the reader understand that all she does is better than anyone else’s. The idea is reinforced even in the woman behaviour The expression “not a dame dared” highlights, also thanks to the alliteration of sound “d” the ambitious and arrogant attitude of the “dame”.
Once again the narrator exploits the singularity of the character resorting to the superlative phrases: “in all the parish” , “not a dame dared”, “in front of her” all together contribute to create an ascending climax to bring the character in the forefront. The narrator also reports the dame’s reaction if anybody had the courage to go before her. She wasn’t ready to accept that and she became furious. This explains for her arrogant attitude. The dame’s desperate desire to come to the forefront is well rend by the syntactical construction of line 7 where the position of the subject pronoun “she” results pivotal. In addiction her angry reaction is well expressed by the alliteration “indeed-did” and the caesura that makes “did” to be a stressed word. What’s more the line(7) communicates an indirect comparison between “they” and “she”. It sounds as if there were an incessant need of the “dame” always to be the first, to be superior, to be more important, more skilled than anybody else that makes her the “worthy woman she is”.
On a second time the narrator describes her “finely woven ground kerchiefs”, he underlines, again, the “dame” importance and her ambitious attitude. This time he makes this with the description of her precious kerchiefs, that she only has. He underlines that they “weighed a good pound”, so only this “dame” could wear something like that. In addiction, once again, we find the alliteration of sound “w” that reminds the adjective “worthy” in the previous lines. At line 11,12,13 the narrator continues describing her clothes ( her red “hose” and her “new shoes”) that underline that she pays attention to her aspect and that she is a rich woman. Afterwards the narrator tells about her face that was “bold, handsome and red in hue”. It seems like her appearance reinforces her personality.
Then the narrator focus his attention on her past: she got married five times at church and ha many partners in youth, too. Right after the narrator says: “ no need just now to speak of that , forsooth”. These three lines (16,17,18) are a way to focus indirectly the attention on her relationships and again on her person: even in love she is ‘superior’ than other people.
Afterwards the narrator tells the reader about the Wife of Bath journeys “ she had seen many strange rivers and passed over them”, “ she was skilled in wandering”. From what the narrator reports about her many pilgrimage the reader can understand that even in wandering she was more skilled than anyone else, so the narrator continues to keep the “dame” on the top.
The Wife of Bath is an independent women, who is not limited in an enclosed space.
Chaucer ends the characterization giving others details about her appearance. She has gap-teeth, that, on the basis of physiognomic, are a sign of sensual character and love for travelling. She is sitting at ease on her horse. She wears a hat as wide as a shield, that, like everything she wears, captures the attention. She wears also a long mantel that covers her large hips, that the narrator refers to in order to underline her attractive aspect. In the end Chaucer describes her behaviour in the company telling that she likes laughing and chatting, and in particular she is an expert in love affairs, since she knows the oldest dances of love art. In conclusion the reader can find out that Chaucer builds the characterization of the Wife of Bath trough the description of her appearance, her clothes, her past life and her behaviour with the people around her.