Wife of Bath in Chaecer's Canterbury Tales

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Recommended: Introduction to canterbury tales

In the Canterbury Tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer the story tells about men and women going on pilgrimages, among them the Wife of Bath in search of her 6th husband, who go on a journey to pay their respect to Sir Thomas á Becket. During the story the Wife of Bath strongly expresses herself as a very strong woman and knows what she expects with the men shes with. As well as this, with all her beauty and respect she was given in life the Wife of Bath displays herself highly. Finally, she ideals her actions with the knowledge she knows from the Bible. Therefore, because of her control, beauty, and knowledge the Wife of Bath is a woman that most women would look up to.

With the Wife of Bath's five different husbands and the search of a new one, she didn't only know what she wanted but how to get it, she did this through ways of being controlling and selfish, but still, came out succeeding at the end of her relationships. The Wife of Bath, with her simple words of the five men she had been with, it was easily detailed with what mattered to her "they were good, and rich, and old, they were scarcely able to keep the statute by which they were bound to me" (p. 191). This is an explaination of exactly what she wanted and how she was able to be continue to be stable. Her unbelieveable control for the husbands she had, in which she thought they would be her "debtor and slave" (p. 189). Chaucer is expressing the sexual, as well as, the controlling side of the Wife of Bath, this also shows the unrealistic expectations she brought forth. At last, she tells exactly how she feels "you should speak thus and put them in the wrong, for no man can perjure himself and lie half so boldly as a woman can" (p. 193). Convicing her husbands ...

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...ity, this knowledge was important.

Chaucer details of society in that day in age, as well as, his detailed information of the Wife of Bath encompassed values in which women still admire today. Women still seek to have a more powerful role in society, even though still today there is a struggle to reach the top. Still today, the perfection you bring to your personal appearance gets your farther in life. Finally, when the reliance in the Bible and how still to this day church and state combine ideas, having a knowledge of the stories in the Bible shows a woman that is full of morals, values, and a good standard of living. Because of all of this, the Wife of Bath showed many sides of herself that may be hard to believe but yet still the backbone of all of it, is what most women try to do with their lives: be stable, powerful, happy, beautiful, and good morals.

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