The Wife of Bath in Canterbury Tales - Essay Example

The Wife of Bath in Canterbury Tales In real life, we find different people with different characters. There are no two people that can have exactly the same character despite the fact that they may have many characters that are similar. Characters that are put in works of art or fiction, be it movies, novels and short stories among others reflect real people in the society because they portray the manner in which people behave in societies. In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, he introduces the text with a description of twenty-nine characters who are going on a pilgrimage.

Each Person has a distinct personality that we can relate to real people in the society today. The Wife of Bath is Chaucer’s most delightful character in the text. Chaucer describes her as a skilled weaver who is excellent than the weavers of Ghent and Ypres. She thinks highly of herself and loses her patients easily and fast if any person tries to precede her in making an offering. She is also beautiful as can be seen in Chaucer’s description of her feet, hips, cloths legs and her gap-tooth.

Chaucer intentionally describes her explicitly to provoke a shocking response as she is also described as a person who goes on a pilgrimage often. These descriptions make the reader wonder whether Alison fits into the Christian values of womanly behavior (Norton 122). In real life, I have met a woman like the Wife of Bath known as Mary. She was my neighbor. She dressed confidently and was not shy. The clothes she put on when going to church made everyone notice her presence adding on to the fact that she was beautiful with a curvaceous body.

She showed off as a singer knowing she had talent and participated often in church events. However, her participation in church events, her pride and the way she dressed did not reflect a person whose faith and dedication in Christianity was directed purposely to God. It was more of a passion to be noticed, to stand out from other women in church. Whenever one tried to surpass her dressing, singing ability or participation, she would increase her efforts and do more. She had to be in the limelight and no one would make her be the second.

She wanted and liked to be in control and ahead of every other person in church. This was clearly not because of her religion but dedication towards being in the limelight. Everybody had known her and noticed her way of clothing. On Sundays, everybody expected to see the sparkling Mary and even though people dressed neatly and participated in church no person wanted to be her rival because she did not settle well with that kind. Mary illuminated my understanding of the wife of Bath, Alison. They seem to have the same character.

Whenever I read Canterbury Tales, I would see Mary in Wife of Bath. The pilgrimages that the wife of Bath makes to Jerusalem, Bologna, Galicia, Rome, and Cologne are characteristic of Mary’s dedicated participation in Church events. Chaucer describes the Wife of Bath as gap-toothed and rides her ambling horse gently and easy. Mary was also gap-toothed. She was truly beautiful. She could not miss the gaze of men who saw her. Some women even envied her beauty and gap-tooth. When one talked to her, you just wanted the talk to last and go on and on so that you would admire her more.

She owned a small sized car, Mini-Cooper. When she was in it, she drove it as if she never wanted it to get any scratch or be old. It was always clean and she never wanted anybody to lean on it. She would remove even the tiniest mark on its body and make it look as white as snow. This is characteristic of the manner in which the Wife of Bath rides her horse. Unlike the Wife of Bath, she was not married but had been with several suitors. The wife of Bath had been married severally (five times) (Norton 92).

This makes them similar because they are experienced with men and assume that they have the remedy to love or know much about love because of the experiences that they have had. Their confidence also reflect similarity as the description of the Wife of Bath and the Mary I knew fit as people who never cared or heeded to what people told them. In conclusion, my experiences with Mary greatly influenced my reading of Canterbury Tales and understanding of the Wife of Bath, Alison. The experience shaped my expectations for the reading and the expectations were met as the Wife of Bath acts to control men because of her greed of sex just like Mary was.

Work Cited The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. MH Abrams. New York: W.W. Norton Company, 1993. Print.