The Wife Of Bath

Since the beginning of civilization, the role of the woman in society has fluxuated as wildly and as unpredictably as a storm, with only the literature of various time periods to show just where she has stood at any given time. For just as long a time span, these women have been categorized into two groups, traditionalists and feminists, based on their beliefs and traits. The former being those who are content and complacent with …

…their given roles in society, and the latter being those who challenge the traditional role of the woman. Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Wife of Bath” character from The Canterbury Tales is a complex individual, as she exhibits the classifying traits of both groups. The Wife Of Bath’s actions and words clearly defy easy categorization into either group, as she displays qualities from both the feminist and traditional viewpoint, and as such she falls into both.