Canterbury Tales The Wife of
Canterbury Tales - The Wife ofThe Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, which was published in March 1981 by
Bantam Books in New York, New York is a funny piece of work about twenty- nine
characters and their stories while on their way to Canterbury. The twenty-nine characters
have to tell two stories on their trip to Canterbury. In the Wife of Bath tale, the wife of
bath tells of a tale of a young knight, the central character in the story. After he raped a
woman, he must roam the countryside in search to the answer to the question �what is it
that women most desire?� This is the plot, for he must find the answer in order to live.
The knight only has one year to get to answer this question and then he has to return to
King Arthur�s court and await his sentence.
The setting is in King Arthur�s court when a young man saw a pretty maiden and
raped her. The King was going to sentence him to death but the Queen decided to give
him one year to answer the question . The story is told from the Wife of Bath�s point of
view for she is narrating the story. So the conflict, being that he has to find the answer, is
established. The knight�s journey does not go well. Finally on the last day that he has, he
comes up to a group of women, as he approaches they disappear and an old woman
appears. This part is the climax of the plot because it is when the knight finally knows the
answer. The old woman says that she knows the answer but she will only tell it to the
Queen and in return she must do anything that she asks of him. The knight agrees. Finally,
while in the presence of the Queen, she tells her that the answer to what all women desire
is sovereignty over their husbands. No one disagrees with her answer and so the old
woman asks that she be married to the knight. The knight having sworn to do whatever
she pleased reluctantly agrees. But this is not the resolution. It happens later on while on
their wedding night. The knight is somewhat disgusted and so the old woman goes on to
lecture him on the trivial nature of appearances. She tells the knight whether he would
prefer to have a woman ugly by day, yet loyal and faithful the rest of the time or to be
beautiful and take his chances the rest of the time. The knight becomes really perplexed by
this whole new situation and so chooses to have her decide. This is the resolution because
the old woman decides to reward him by giving him both beautiful yet loyal and faithful.
The main character being the knight is a dynamic character because he changes
from the beginning to the end of the story. At first he was only interested in appearances
and does not really care about the women and what they wanted and needed. But at the
end of the tale, the knight realizes that all that time he was wrong. He finally gave himself
up to his wife and had her decide whatever she pleased. This was the theme of the tale. To
love each other in true harmony will only make two people even better lovers.
I really liked this story because it had a very good plot. It was also fun to read. The
way the Wife of bath showed that what women wanted in men was total sovereignty by
making the knight letting the old woman choose whether she wanted to be old and faithful
or young and not faithful waas truly ingeneous. That was a really good way of putting
what she had just said. It was also interesting and kind of funny to see how the knight
would react to marrying the old woman and actually being with her on their wedding
night. I would definitely recommend this to other readers because it was such a witty
story.