The Wife of Bath

1345 Words3 Pages

The Wife of Bath In Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales", the Wife of Bath tells a tale that includes irony to her and Chaucer. She was considered a beautiful woman but today would be considered ugly. She is considered worthy but vulgar. The reader would think her title showed that she was a loyal wife but the reader will soon know that is not true. Her tale and she have some symbolism each other. Some aspects of the tale resemble Chaucer's life. The general prologue of the "Canterbury Tales" by Chaucer the Wife of Bath is one of three of the women. She is the only women is not the nun. It talks about how she was from Bath. Bath is a city of great cloth making. This explains why she is such a good at sewing. She is over exaggerated. Her hat was large and made of fine cloth. She had scarlet stockings. The color scarlet was a symbol of wealth. She had leather shoes. They were new and of soft leather. She wore a skirt. She was said to be fat. She had larger hips and buttocks. She rode a slow horse. She has been to Jerusalem, Rome, Boulogne, Santiago in Spain, and Cologne. She was married five times. She talks about sexuality and love openly. The Wife of Bath starts with her prologue, which is more of just her background. She tells of her five husbands. She talks about how the first three were good. The "good" she is talking about is one of being rich, old, and she had control. They could not satisfy her need for attention of intimacy. The last two were "bad" meaning that the fourth husband had a mistress and the fifth beat her. They were though very in tune with her need for intimacy. She talks about how she knows how to control men to get what she wants. She says that a person can control him by controlling the intercourse. She says she know this from her experience in life. She will also try to use references to other works to make her look more reliable. She talks of her fifth husband who had a book of works that showed unfaithful, superficial, evil creature, and who undermined their husbands. He uses this as a form of punishment. He would read this to her to make her feel bad about what she had done.

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