Canterbury Tales Character Bio: Wife of Bath                                                                                                 James Mansfield

HR: “The Canterbury tales by Geoffrey Chaucer”

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The Wife of bath is described as extremely elegant and well dressed. She seeks to be the center of attention wherever she goes. This is indicated by the descriptions of her dress and  a sentence where she is described as always expecting first service at “almsgiving” or communion. If she is denied this, than the charity as a whole, to her, is worthless. Furthermore she is well traveled and accustomed to expensive, long pilgrimages or trips. Most likely she is not concerned about any religious significance behind these trips, but rather the status symbol which comes from being well traveled, something extraordinarily expensive and rare in the middle ages. She puts her status and ego above that of religion. The author describes this character flaw with a very deep disdain.

She is described as gap toothed which might indicate a lack of formal intelligence, but this reference went over my head. I would like to know what Chaucer means by this, maybe it should be taken for (no pun intended) face value and I am overanalyzing. Furthermore I would like to know what his reference to her being deaf is. Is she literally without hearing, or is it a more spiritual deafness to the word of god?