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The Wife of Bath Questions and Answers

Short Essay Type Questions with Answers

Q1. How does Chaucer present the character of the Wife of Bath in the General Prologue?

Or Write a short note on the portrayal of the Wife of Bath as a pilgrim.

Ans. In the General Prologue, the Wife is mentioned as a good ‘wif‘ of ‘biside Bathe’, skilled in cloth making that qualitatively surpassed that of ‘Ypres’ and ‘Gaunt’. So forceful is her personality that she makes her presence felt:

In al the parisshewif ne was ther noon

That to the offryngebifore hire sholde goon;

And if therdide, certeyn so wrooth was she, That she was out of allecharitee.

The order of precedence in making the offering at church was of considerable importance in the Middle Ages. The Wife of Bath is therefore very particular about not being preceded in this matter, and if any other good wife dares to go before her, it would make her so angry that she would then be out of all charity.

The Wife is dressed lavishly. Her ‘coverchiefs’ or headcovers are so elaborate and heavy that the narrator is sure that they weigh ten pounds. Her ‘hosen’ or stocking are of a fine scarlet red colour and always tightly drawn not lose and hanging, and her shoes are soft and new. She has a bold look on her face and is of fair complexion with a red tinge to it. She has had five husbands and is now on the lookout for a sixth, not counting the other company she has had in her youth.

The Wife loves to travel in gay company. Thrice she has visited Jerusalem and has crossed many a strange streams. She has been to Rome, Boulogne; she has visited the great altar of St. James in Spain and has been to Cologne probably to visit the tomb of the Magi. There is perhaps no exaggeration when Chaucer tells us that the Wife knows a good deal about ‘Wandrynge by the weye’. What is interesting, however, is the way Chaucer links up the fact of the Wife being ‘gat toothed’ with her accounts of travelling. This particular physical characteristic had many associations for the Middle Ages. Such women were thought to be variously passionate, envious, rich, luxurious, bold, faithless, deceitful, suspicious, and in addition to all this Chaucer interprets it as a sign of much travel. She is rich, successful, bold, amorous, must be passionate too, is envious and could have been suspicious of her various husbands. She rides comfortably on an ambler and is covered up to the neck with a wimple. On her head she wears a broad hat which is amusingly likened to a buckler or a small shield. The portrait ends with a general comment on her character:

In feloweshipswelkoude she laughe and carpe;

Of remedies of love she knew per chaunce,

For she koude of that art the olde dance.

Laughing and chatting with her companions, she must surely have proved to be an interesting, amusing pilgrim. Being an old hand at the game of love, she is expert in mending broken hearts.

Q. 2. Write a note on the position of women in Medieval England with reference to the character of the Wife of Bath.

Or, How does Chaucer present the position of women in the 14th century England through the character of the Wife of Bath?

Ans. In the General Prologue, the Wife is mentioned as a good ‘wif’ of ‘biside Bathe skilled in cloth making that qualitatively surpassed that of Florence and Gaunt. Whether it is only in her own estimation that her skill in weaving surpasses that of the Flemish weavers, or whether the narrator is genuinely giving credit where it is due, remains unclear. But the Wife of Bath’s unorthodox views on marriage and her deviation from norms of domesticity do not emerge from a vacuum. Her experience that she places against authority comprises her five husbands, her cloth making business, her travelling and in the larger context the experience of the social class to which she belongs- the rising burgesses engaged in trade. The economic mastery and sovereignty that she wishes to sustain stems from her awareness of the importance of accumulating wealth. In that sense, she represents nascent capitalist entrepreneurship.

Besides gaining wealth from wool, the Wife has inherited a great deal from her ‘fyve’ husbands. From the earliest times, the widow of a landed man had their right to dower. By 14th century, this dower was replaced by jointure. Her singular claim to this combined property is supported by the bourgeoisie customs that had the effect of law and gave certain rights to women, which were otherwise denied by either common law or canon law. In the wake of the depleting labour market in contemporary England due to Black Death, woman like her derived great encouragement and power to take control of their money and through that power, considerable freedom in personal matters. The Wife of Bath is portrayed by Chaucer as a representative of the expanding trade of the fourteenth century and reveals the information on the position of women in 14th century England. This makes the Wife seem more of real person than a fictional character, thus allowing the reader to see her as a representative for women of her status in Medieval times.

Q. 3. In the General Prologue, the character of the Wife of Bath seems to be larger than life. Justify.

Ans. The Wife’s behavior as described in the General Prologueis indicative of her characteristics. Her behavior in church reflects upon a woman in need of attention and public recognition of her status. She does not care for other women to outshineher in church. Her many pilgrimages indicate a certain restlessness which reflects on her attitudes andemotions.She is poles apart from the delicate feminine attributes of the Prioress. Rather than being a beautiful and sophisticated figure like the Prioress, the Wife of Bath is a coarse and ostentatious figure modelled more on the lines of a female figure from a fabliau. She is dressed lavishly. Her ‘coverchiefs’ or headcovers are so elaborate and heavy that the narrator is sure that they weigh ten pounds. Her ‘hosen’ or stocking are of a fine scarlet red colour and always tightly drawn not lose and hanging, and her shoes are soft and new. She has a bold look on her face and is of fair complexion with a red tinge to it. She has had five husbands and is now on the lookout

for a sixth, not counting the other company she has had in her youth. She is aggressively flamboyant as she wearsa ten-pound headscarf, and this trait is further stressed by her red stockings which match her bold red face, and her huge hat: ‘As brood as is a bokeler or a targe.’

The Wife has travelled much, and in this way may be compared with the Knight and contrasted with the Parson. The Knight travels out of a sense of service but Dame Alisoun, the Wife, travels the routes to the main places of pilgrimage more for diversion than for religious reasons. The Parson does not travel beyond the confines of his parish, but every step he makes has a purpose whereas the Wife”… koudemuchel of wandringe by the weye”. It is rightly pointed out by Nigel Thomas that “Everything about this woman is larger than life – her voice, her sexual experience and her taste in clothes. In one way this suggests coarseness and vulgarity, but along with these there exists a vitality and a passion for experience.”

Q. 4. Write a note on the character traits of the Wife of Bath.

Ans. In the General Prologue, the Wife of Bath is described as one of the pilgrims assembled in the Tabard Inn in Southwark, London to undertake a journey to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury. The Wife, the female cloth-maker from Bath, has the misfortune of being a little bit deaf, and this is the first observation made by the narrator. Her portrait reveals her to be a forthright woman, with a great sense of humour, full of warmth, is friendly, though with a little want of decorum, a little lack of restraint. But on the whole a lively and amusing character who makes an unforgettable impression on our minds.

The Wife is poles apart from the delicate feminine attributes of the Prioress. Rather than being a beautiful and sophisticated figure like the Prioress, the Wife of Bath is a coarse and ostentatious figure modelled more on the lines of a female figure from a fabliau. She is dressed lavishly. Her ‘coverchiefs’ or headcovers are so elaborate and heavy that the narrator is sure that they weigh ten pounds. Her ‘hosen’ or stocking are of a fine scarlet red colour and always tightly drawn not lose and hanging, and her shoes are soft and new. She has a bold look on her face and is of fair complexion with a red tinge to it. She has had five husbands and is now on the lookout for a sixth, not counting the other company she has had in her youth. She is aggressively flamboyant as she wears a ten-pound headscarf, and this trait is further stressed by her red stockings which match her bold red face, and her huge hat: ‘As brood as is a bokeler or a targe’.

Chaucer mingles literary model with social reality: The Wife is onlypartly an imitation of the description of La Vieille in the Roman de la Rose. Many ofher characteristics could be traced back to the fact that she was born when Tauruswas in the ascendant and Mars and Venus in conjunction in that sign of the zodiac. This accounts for her sexual appetite and refusal to be dominated by men in marriage.She may thus be a successor to an earlier type of the heroic woman, the Amazonlocated now in a middle-class milieu where martial qualities were expressed in thedomestic world of gender relations. Among her personal traits, which have promptedcritics to identify her, are her love of travel, her rather unfashionable dress andequipment, and the fact that she was deaf and her teeth were set wide apart. Chauceralso gives an accurate statement as to thelocality of Bath from which she came. ‘Biside Bathe’ doubtless refers tothe suburban parish of ‘St. Michael’s juxtaBathon’.

Q. 5.Comment on the Wife of Bath’s extensive travelling.

Ans. no The Wife of Bath, says Chaucer in the General Prologue, loves to travel in company. Thrice she has visited Jerusalem and has crossed many a strange streams. She has been to Rome, Boulogne; she has visited the great altar of St. James in Spain and has been to Cologne probably to visit the tomb of the Magi. There is perhaps exaggeration when Chaucer tells us that the Wife knows a good deal about “Wandrynge by the weye’. She has been given by Chaucer a willand energy, regardless of religious intent, to travel to Jerusalem three times, as well as visiting Rome and Northern Spain.

What is interesting, however, is the way Chaucer links up the fact of the Wife being ‘gat toothed’ with her accounts of travelling. This particular physical characteristic had many associations for the Middle Ages and it could be interpreted in severalways. Such women were thought to be variously passionate, envious, rich, luxurious, bold, faithless, deceitful, suspicious, and in addition to all this Chaucer interprets it as a sign of much travel. But theWife’s character bears out some of the other interpretations also as we have already seen. She is rich,successful, bold, luxurious must be passionate too, is envious and could have been suspicious of her various husbands. But she has travelled much, and in this way may be compared with the Knight and contrasted with the Parson. The Knight travels out of a sense of service but Dame Alisoun, the Wife, travels the routes to the main places of pilgrimage more for diversion than for religious reasons. The Parson does not travel beyond the confines of his parish, but every step he makes has a purpose whereas the Wife “… koudemuchel of wandringe by the weye”. It is rightly pointed out by Nigel Thomas that “Everything about this woman is larger than life – her voice, her sexual experience and her taste in clothes. In one way this suggests coarseness and vulgarity, but along with these there exists a vitality and a passion for experience.”

Q. 6. Write about the Wife of Bath’s sexuality.

Or, What does the sexual life of the Wife of Bath signify?

Ans. When the Wife of Bath or Dame Alison is introduced by Chaucer, she is introduced as a Wife rather than as a professional cloth maker. For all other pilgrims Chaucer had begun their portraits by first mentioning their profession, so we have “A knight ther was…”, “Ther was a Nunne, a Prioress…” or “A Monk ther was…” or “Ther was a Doctor of Phisik…” and so on. With the Wife of Bath, however, he chooses to place an emphasis on her status as a wife (even though at the time she is a widow) but makes her status as a cloth maker secondary to her marital status. The Wife could be interpreted as a ferocious monument to the destructive nature of acquisitive sexual demands. She has killed off five husbands through her voracious appetites: “Withouten oothercompaignie in youthe!” With her sharp spurs, ‘gat -teeth’ and scarlet stockings, she would probably strike fear rather than admiration in the hearts of all but the strongest men.

In the group comprising of thirty pilgrims, there are just two more women beside the Wife of Bath. One is the Prioress who fits the bill for a heroine of any conventional romance, being beautiful and sophisticated; and the other, a nun, is merely mentioned and not described. The Wife of Bath is poles apart from the delicate feminine attributes of the Prioress. Rather than being a beautiful and sophisticated figure like the Prioress, the Wife of Bath is a coarse and ostentatious figure modelled more on the lines of a female figure from a fabliau. She barges into this group of almost entirely male pilgrims, refusing to be dictated to by any conventional standards of good moral and social behaviour and also refuses to be the custodian of any conventional feminine virtues. Rather than being submissive and demure, she is boldly assertive and flashy in her dress and acknowledges her liking for the physical pleasures of life with an impudence.

7 .Comment on the clothing, colour, and dressing sense of the Wife of Bath.

Ans. Clothing and colour get special attention in Chaucer’s description of the Wife. He draws attention to the fine fabric of her ‘hir coverchiefs’ (her head-dress) and speculates on the heavy head-dress that she might wear when displaying herself in church on a Sunday. Maybe Chaucer wants to attest the readers’ observation: a woman displaying her wealth and sense of importance in the amount of fabric that she wears. Equipped with a large head-dress, she is set to make a big impression.

Red is a vibrant colour and it is the colour that the narrator associates with the Wife. Her carefully tied ‘hosen’ (hose) is ‘of fyn scarlet reed’ (red), and her bold face is ‘reed of hewe’ (of red complexion). These details add to the sense that Chaucer is describing a figure who attracts and demands attention.

The narrator also notices that the Wife’s large hat is ‘as brood as is a bokeler or a targe’ (as broad as a shield, or as a large shield). Again, her dress or equipment becomes a sign of her sense of her own importance and her dominance. Interestingly, medieval physiognomists might well agree with Freudian commentators over some of the details in thecharacterisation. Therewas a readily available system of physiognomy which interpreted facialand other details as reflections of the inner person. Hence the red faceand the spiky teeth would be associated with a strongly lascivioustemperament. A similar conclusion might be drawn from the Freudian implications of her ‘spores sharpe’.

Short Questions with Answers

Q. 1. How does Chaucer introduce the character of the Wife?

Ans. In the General Prologue, the Wife is introduced as a good ‘wif’ of ‘biside Bathe For the rest of the pilgrims Chaucer had begun their portraits by first mentioning their profession, so we have “A knight ther was…”, “Ther was a Nunne, Prioress…” or “A Monk ther was…” or ‘Ther was a Doctor of Phisik…” and so on With the Wife of Bath, however, he chooses to place an emphasis on her status as a wife (even though at the time she is a widow) but makes her status as a cloth maker secondary to her marital status.

Q. 2. “But she was somdeldeef, and that was scathe.” – Why does Chaucer mention deafness at the very beginning and why is it a pity?

the Wife’s Ans. The Wife of Bath has the misfortune of being a little bit deaf, and this is the firstobservation made by the narrator. Inthis portrait, her deafness is part of her loudness. Perhaps it is the deafness of one who wilfully will not hear the voice ofauthority, and the anger, too, may show how close the Wife is tomortal sin.

Q. 3. Why is the Wife of Bath compared to the weavers of Ypres and Ghent?

Ans. The Wife of Bath, the female cloth maker, is compared by the narrator to those of Ypres and Ghent. She is so good at cloth making that she evensurpasses the expertise of the well-known weavers of ‘Ypres’ and ‘Gaunt’. This exaggerated praise bears a note of subtle irony. The poet is telling us that this is how the Wife valuesher own skill.

Q. 4. “In al the parisshewif ne was ther noon

That to the offryngebifore hire sholde goon; And if therdide, certeyn so wrooth was she,

That she was out of allecharitee” – Explain.

Or, How does the Wife use to react if someone goes to the offering before her?

Ans. The order of precedence in making the offering at church was of considerable importance in the Middle Ages. The Wife of Bath is therefore very particular about not being preceded in this matter, and ifany other good wife dares to go before her, it would make her so angry that she would then be out of allcharity.

Q. 5. Describe the ‘coverchiefs’ worn by the Wife.

Ans. The kerchiefs or head-dresses (‘coverchiefs’) that she wore upon her head were very fine in texture and according to the narratorthey weighed ten pounds.She wore these particularly onSundays.

6 .Describe the ‘hosen’ and shoes worn by the Wife.

Ans. According to the narrator, the Wife’s ‘hosen’ or stockings are of a fine scarlet red colour and always tightly drawn not lose andhanging, and her shoes aresoft and new.

Q. 7. How does the Wife look like?

Ans. The Wife of Bath has a bold look on her face and is of fair complexion with ared tinge to it.

Q. 8. “She was a worthy womman al hirlyve:

Housbondes at chirchedore she haddefyve,” – Comment on Chaucer’s use of irony here.

Ans. There is a qualified use of the word ‘worthy’ by Chaucer because while the poet calls her so, he startles us in the next line by telling us about her marital and extra marital affairs. To begin withshe has had five husbands and is now on the lookout for a sixth, not counting the other company she hashad in her youth. The word worthy in the first line sets up a very approving moral value judgment; the detail inthe second line undercuts it.

Q. 9. Mention the various places the Wife has been to.

Ans. The Wife had been to Jerusalem thrice and had passed many a strange and foreign seas. She had been to Rome and Boulogne, in Galicia at St James and at Cologne.

Q.10. Why is Cologne mentioned by Chaucer as a place of pilgrimage?

Ans. According to the narrator, the Wife of Bath has made a pilgrimage to Cologne, presently in Germany, probably to visit the Shrine of the Biblical Three Kings of East or the Tomb of the Magi.

Q.11. Give the religious significance of the place Boulogne.

Ans. The Wife of Bath, says the narrator, went to Boulogne, a city in Northern France, to visit a fragmented statue and a Shrine to the Virgin Mary.

Q.12. Why is Rome mentioned as a place of pilgrimage?

Ans. The much-travelled Wife, according to the narrator, has visited Rome, as it is the home of the Pope and many other major Christian churches and sites.

Q.13. Why has the Wife visited Jerusalem thrice?

Ans. Being a worthy woman all her life, the Wife of Bath has visited Jerusalem, the ultimate Christian pilgrimage destination, thrice. According to Gospels, Jesus Christ’s public ministry as well as his passion, death, and resurrection have taken place in Jerusalem.

Q.14. Why is Galicia mentioned as a place of pilgrimage?

Ans. The Wife has made a journey along the way of St. James to the Cathedral and Shrine of the apostle James in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia.

Q.15. What could be reason for describing the Wife as gap-toothed (‘Gat-tothed’)?

Ans. Chaucer links up the fact of the Wife being ‘gat toothed’ with her accounts of travelling. There was a readily available system of physiognomy which interpreted facialand other details as reflections of the inner person. Hence the red faceand the spiky teeth would be associated with a strongly lascivious temperament.

Q.16. How did the Wife ride an ambler?

Ans. The Wife sat easily upon an ambler (a pacing horse), wearing a large wimple (veil), and a hat as broad as is a shield. She wore an overskirt about her large hips and a pair of spurs on her feet.

Q.17. “Of remedies of love she knew per chaunce,

For she koude of that art the oldedaunce.” – Explain the meaning.

Ans. These lines bear different connotations. While some may see in the Wife the knowledgeof remedies of love – a suggestion of skills in abortion, others willargue that the phrase may refer to nothing more than mending brokenhearts, or at the worst, the making of love-potions and stimulants tosmooth the path of love.

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