In this essay I will be examining the Wife of Baths Prologue and Tale and also the Knights Tale. I will be examining the various ways Chaucer utilises the traditional methods of storytelling from his age and how this adds to the richness of the fiction.
Chaucer like most artists "with a bent for natural verisimilitude drew from living modes and thought of individuals"1. From this we are presented with the Wife of Bath, who has accurately been described as one of Chaucer's most enduring and realistic characters, who as all the other pilgrims has a distinct trade. As it has been said that "the conception of The Canterbury Tales involved an inherent conflict, between the pilgrimage, with its goal the martyr's shrine in the cathedral at Canterbury, and the game of storytelling, with its purpose of entertaining the pilgrims throughout their journey"2.
It has been argued that Chaucer constructed her prologue and character out of commonplace Latin clerical teaching and satire on both marriage and women and, also "misogynist sources and analogues . savagely antifeminist French Fabliau Le Leu of the thirteenth century"3. .
I feel it is important to look at the Prologue and Tale as her Prologue inverts our expectations of what it should be. It is meant to be the introduction to the Tale whereas in here the Prologue is longer than the Tale; she uses it in order to draw attention to herself as she feels that is more important. In doing so the Wife of Bath inverts the order of the normal narrative, and the common social order as women in medieval literature tended to only feature in tales in very stereotypical roles; as a beautiful lady, a love interest or an old wife. Chaucer created a woman never seen before in English Literature. Her Tale however is not just unique because it is narrated by a women it has many undeniable qualities. .
A woman married five times, some for pleasure but mostly for money.
