The Wife of Bath: Geoffrey Chaucer

The Wife of Bath is one of Chaucer’s most enduring characters, and apparently, one of the most famous of any of the Canterbury stories. The wifes voice is extremely distinctive, loud, self-promoting, extremely aggressive and her lengthy prologue silences the Pardoner and the Friar for daring to interrupt her. One of the key issues for interpreting the Wife’s tale historically has been the relationship between the prologue and tale. Some critics have found in the Wife’s fairy-tale ending a wistful, saddened dreaminess from an elderly woman whose hopes for a sixth husband might turn out to be futile. Other critics have treated the tale as a matter of power and control, arguing that the Wife’s tale, starting as it does with a rape is deeply ambiguous at its close about precisely whose desire is being fulfilled. Surely there is little point in the woman having the power if all she is to do with it is to please her husband?