The Prioress In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

Society’s view of women has long been complex and multifaceted. This is largely due to the fact that women themselves are complex and multifaceted. Because every women’s motivations and ideals vary, no woman fits neatly into a category imposed upon her by the world. Mirroring this truth, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales features many nuanced female characters in order to make statements on the nature of women including their role in society and their desires. Chaucer’s direct description of women in the prologue to the Tales is the beginning of his commentary. The Prioress is an upstanding woman who takes “much pleasure in proper etiquette” (Chaucer 9). Being educated in a priory in Stratford-at-Bow, it is fitting that the Prioress would be well-reared. Her attitude and manners reveal her commitment to the rule of Saint Benedict in speaking humbly and remaining modest. However, her devotion to the order is not a shield from Chaucer’s commentary on women. The Prioress is “so full of pity that she would weep if she saw a mouse caught in a trap dead or …show more content…
The wife has “such a talent for making cloth that she [surpasses] the weavers of Ypres and Ghent” (23). This statement of skill marks an important difference in the descriptions of the Wife and the Prioress — Chaucer describes the Prioress mainly by her attitude and manners, whereas he characterizes the Wife by her talents. This characterization makes the Wife an actor in her life rather than a passive bystander. As society knows women of each kind, Chaucer creates such characters. Further, the wife has “been at Rome and at Boulogne” and “[knows] much about wandering” (23). The Wife’s nomadic nature reinforces her attitudes about love which Chaucer later reveals. As the Wife desires to travel, she also desires to find and use love wherever she can. This desire, however, is subordinate to another desire of