In his famous frame narrative, The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer satirizes the thirty pilgrims on their pilgrimage using a story within a story. The thirty pilgrims consist of a cross-section of fourteenth century England, including aristocrats, clergy, middle class, trade class, and the peasants and omitting only royalty and serfs. They congregate at the Tabard Inn, Southwark, directly outside of London, and make their journey to their final destination, Saint Thomas Becket’s shrine in Canterbury. The Host, Harry Bailly, invents a contest to avoid boredom on the long journey to Canterbury. Each pilgrim must tell two tales on the way to and on the way back; the winner is determined by the tale that is the most equally moral and entertaining. The
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The Wife of Bath, also called Alisoun, is described as having a red face, wide hips and wide gap-teeth; these qualities are seen as handsome for the time period. The wide-hips signify, as Rosalyn Rossignol says, “mature sexuality” (17); clearly the Wife of Bath has been with many men in her life. She grows older but still desires men, so she wears bright scarlet red tights, which symbolize lust. She wears kerchiefs, described by Chaucer as, “… finely woven ground; / I dared have sworn they weighed a good ten pound, / The ones she wore on Sunday, on her head” (GP 15). Alisoun dresses inordinately on Sundays for Mass because she believes herself to be “the most prosperous woman of business” (Bowden par.1). On pilgrimages, she wears simple clothing, including a “flowing mantle / That concealed large hips” (Chaucer, GP 15). Since she travels alone in the middle class on her way to Canterbury, Alisoun displays independence and power. She loves to chat and believes she dispenses the best advice on love because she has been married five times and is in search of a sixth husband on her
The Wife of Bath, also called Alisoun, is described as having a red face, wide hips and wide gap-teeth; these qualities are seen as handsome for the time period. The wide-hips signify, as Rosalyn Rossignol says, “mature sexuality” (17); clearly the Wife of Bath has been with many men in her life. She grows older but still desires men, so she wears bright scarlet red tights, which symbolize lust. She wears kerchiefs, described by Chaucer as, “… finely woven ground; / I dared have sworn they weighed a good ten pound, / The ones she wore on Sunday, on her head” (GP 15). Alisoun dresses inordinately on Sundays for Mass because she believes herself to be “the most prosperous woman of business” (Bowden par.1). On pilgrimages, she wears simple clothing, including a “flowing mantle / That concealed large hips” (Chaucer, GP 15). Since she travels alone in the middle class on her way to Canterbury, Alisoun displays independence and power. She loves to chat and believes she dispenses the best advice on love because she has been married five times and is in search of a sixth husband on her