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An Analysis of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales": The Wife of Bath's Tale


In reading Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," I found that of the
Wife of Bath, including her prologue, to be the most thought-provoking. The
pilgrim who narrates this tale, Alison, is a gap-toothed, partially deaf
seamstress and widow who has been married five times. She claims to have great
experience in the ways of the heart, having a remedy for whatever might ail it.
Throughout her story, I was shocked, yet pleased to encounter details which were
rather uncharacteristic of the women of Chaucer's time. It is these
peculiarities of Alison's tale which I will examine, looking not only at the
chivalric and religious influences of this medieval period, but also at how she
would have been viewed in the context of this society and by Chaucer himself.
During the period in which Chaucer wrote, there was a dual concept of
chivalry, one facet being based in reality and the other existing mainly in the......

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Approximate Word Count: 1013
Approximate Pages: 5 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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