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Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

Take any pilgrim whose tale we read and show Chaucer artfully matches the story to the teller.

Of the many stories he writes the tale told by the Wife of Bath is the most verbal and for its time the most forthright exposition of the role women did not have but could have in that time period. The wife of Bath's story is fairly general a man is accused of trying to rape a woman and the sentence for this charge is to be hung. The mean pleads and pleads to be acquitted of his charge so the queen of the time says he will not be hung if he finds the answer to a certain question. The question is "What is it women most desire." He is given one year and one day to find this answer and until the day before his "judgment day" he has numerous answers from many different women. Finally the night before he goes to an older woman and she offers him a trade the answer for him. The answer she gives him, which is the correct answer is that women want control. His life is saved by this woman whom he now owes his life to, and this old woman becomes a "Wife of Bath." Despite her age, we do not know much of her background either but we know she knows how to control a man because of how she treats the one she has been given.
The man goes on to make many mistakes, making decisions the lady should be making, or thinks she should be making. And with that the Wife of Bath has held 5 husbands and is in search of her 6th we do not know if this lady has been lonely all of her life or not but we know she wants control and seems to enjoy struggling to get it. The Wife of Bath most enjoyed her last 2 husbands because she had the least control over them. She enjoyed this because it was a challenge but she was always working towards having her way. This philosophy was way out of date for the time period Chaucer wrote it in because he Wife of Bath is also like the queen. She likes to have the money and riches and the queen is what she wants to be a woman in her time who has...

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