The Wife of Bath, named Alisoun, is arguably the most vivid and complex character in Chaucer’s General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer’s description of her is a masterful blend of physical detail, social commentary, and thematic implication, setting her up as a powerful force who embodies the clash between medieval morality and secular vitality.
Here is a comprehensive analysis of her portrait in the General Prologue.
Contents
The Wife of Bath: A Comprehensive Analysis
1. The Persona: The Authority of Experience
The portrait of the Wife of Bath is introduced with the scandalous detail that she has had five husbands at the church door, an extraordinary number for the time that immediately brands her as unconventional and experienced. She is not a shrinking religious figure, but a wealthy artisan from Bath (“A good Wif was ther of biside Bathe”) whose life is based on the authority of experience (experience) over traditional religious and academic authority (auctoritee).
2. Physicality and Clothing: Boldness and Ostentation
Chaucer uses her appearance to define her aggressive personality, wealth, and defiance of feminine humility.
| Feature | Chaucer’s Description | Detailed Interpretation |
| Profession & Wealth | A highly skilled weaver (“She passed hem alle in makyng of cloth”). | Her financial independence from the booming cloth trade is the source of her social freedom and ability to choose her own path. She is a self-made woman. |
| Extravagance | Her linen head-coverchiefs weighed “ten pound on her heed.” | This hyperbolic detail emphasizes her vanity and desire for social precedence. Her elaborate attire symbolizes her excessive wealth and refusal of humble piety. |
| Color Symbolism | Her stockings were of fyn scarlet red; her shoes were “moyste and newe.” | Scarlet red is the color of passion, boldness, and luxury. It is a direct visual cue of her sensual nature. The fresh shoes suggest a restless, active, and youthful eagerness for worldly pleasures. |
| Physiognomy | She was gat-toothed (gap-toothed) and had “large hips.” | In medieval belief, a gap-tooth was a clear sign of a lustful, sensual, and amorous nature, often associated with extensive travel. Her large hips were also tied to fertility and sexual confidence. |
3. Social Standing and Unconventional Piety
The Wife of Bath’s social rituals reveal that her spiritual devotion is secondary to her social and personal pride.
- Competitive Pride: The narrator notes that if any woman dared to go before her to the offering in church, she would be so angry (“wroth”) that she was “out of alle charitee.” This suggests her faith is subordinate to her ego and desire for public recognition.
- The Worldly Pilgrim: Her extensive travels—to Jerusalem three times, Rome, Bologna, and Cologne—are remarkable for a woman of her time. These are not merely acts of piety; they are evidence of her immense wealth, restlessness, and desire for worldly adventure. Her “pilgrimage” is as much a social tour as a religious quest.
4. Thematic Role: Mastery and Sexual Power
The portrait concludes by confirming her dominant role in personal relationships:
“Of remedies of love she knew, par chaunce, / For she koude of that art the olde daunce.”
- Expert in Love: The “remedies of love” is a direct literary allusion to Ovid’s Remedia Amoris, a secular text on romantic strategy. This positions her not as a moralist, but as a cunning practitioner.
- The “Olde Daunce”: This is a well-known euphemism for the “game of love” or sexual activity. This confirms she is an acknowledged expert in sexual politics and marital maneuvering, securing her “maistrie” (sovereignty or control) through her body and wit.
5. Chaucer’s Rhetoric and Irony
Chaucer’s narrator describes her with a tone of ambiguous praise, calling her a “worthy woman al hir lyve.”
- Ironic “Worthiness”: The term “worthy” normally implies moral uprightness and chastity. However, the details provided (five husbands, lustful appearance, quick temper) force the reader to redefine the term. She is “worthy” not in a spiritual sense, but in the sense of being highly capable, wealthy, and powerful—a living challenge to the meek, submissive ideal of womanhood.
- A Challenge to Misogyny: By creating a character who embodies many of the negative medieval stereotypes about women (lustful, vain, dominant) but who is also incredibly vital, humorous, and intelligent, Chaucer gives power and voice to the caricature. Her description sets her up to deliver a personal narrative that both embraces and subverts the prevailing anti-feminist literature of the era.
In summary, the Wife of Bath’s portrait establishes her as a dominant, unforgettable figure whose entire life is an argument for personal freedom and female sovereignty, setting the stage for one of the most provocative tales in the collection.
Aman Pal
Literatureman