How Does Chaucer Present The Wife Of Bath As A Woman Of Her Time?

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How Does Chaucer Present The Wife Of Bath As A Woman Of Her Time?

Women were very much perceived as second-class citizens in the fourteenth century, they were rarely educated and had little status in society. As the Wife of Bath's Prologue is spoken by woman of exceeding experience with husbands, with strong opinions on how married life should be conducted, but is written by a man it is natural to look at how Chaucer presents the Wife Of Bath. This is especially so as many of the pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales condemn themselves out of their own mouth. Are we to agree with the views that the Wife of Bath puts forward so strongly, or does Chaucer present her as a caricature of every negative quality women are traditionally guilty of?

A great deal of the Wife's Prologue is spent in her narration of the tirades that she subjected her first three husbands to, largely a list of accusations made by anti-feminists of women, and the Wife's spirited responses. Indeed, the Wife's speech and behaviour, as well as her account of her history, appear to support the accusations of lechery and destructiveness made by anti-feminists. It appears that Chaucer is being ironic, in having the Wife defend herself against accusations, which her speech and behaviour prove.
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Chaucer's presentation of the Wife is not an effort to make us judge the degree of her sin. It is not moralistic: it is simply a presentation of an interesting character and her exciting escapades. With her forceful domestic idiom and colourful language, the Wife forces us to become involved in the fight for mastery between her and her husbands, even if we do not fully agree with her. Her prowling of the streets is understandable when we hear her description of her husbands as "bacon", or old meat -- her destruction of Jankyn's book is justified by ...

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