The Wife of Bath is not a hugely popular topic of conversation for modern feminists. That could be because her story was written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century.
“The Canterbury Tales” is a (really) old book filled with dense middle English prose, which doesn’t especially appeal to most modern readers.
Time period aside, Chaucer’s portrayal of the Wife of Bath is also, at surface level, deeply unflattering. The Wife of Bath, whose real name is Alison, provides justifications for her five marriages and manipulative seduction techniques that are convoluted, painfully literal and, generally, fairly stupid.
And yet, when viewed as a conscious societal criticism from Chaucer’s perspective, Alison’s character assumes satirical dimensions. Her overly complicated and literal quoting of the Bible is suddenly a plausible critique of the male biblical interpreters of Chaucer’s time.
Her use of sex as a way to manipulate her various husbands is, at second glance, a criticism of a society in which women were only afforded power within their personal relationships, and then subsequently demonized for exploiting this narrow window of opportunity.
This is all up for interpretation, of course. As it should be. As it was in my English 120 recitation, where we’re reading the Wife of Bath’s tale.
No, I don’t normally read “The Canterbury Tales” for fun.
The discussion was eventually brought around to an overarching question: is Alison’s character a complex societal critique, or is she, as our teacher phrased it, “just crazy?”
This oversimplification — this attempt to dispel notions of complexity in a woman’s character, to forego nuanced analysis in favor of the all-consuming and damning label of “crazy” — was not an isolated incident. It wouldn’t have bothered me if it was.
