"The Wife of Bath's Tale"
Things to Consider:
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Piety vs. Hypocrisy
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Role / View of Women
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Allegory
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Relation of Storyteller to Story
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Comparison between the Wife and the Pardoner
** Homework Questions **
619:
-
What is Chaucer's purpose in telling this tale? What is the Wife of
Bath's purpose?
Prologue:
624:
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Describe the Wife's treatment of her first three husbands.
625:
-
Explain: "All we wives our vices hide / Till we are married, then
we show them well" (282-83).
Tale Proper (page #s refer to on-line version)
223:
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Why, according to the Wife of Bath, are there no more elves and fairies?
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Why is the Knight condemned to die?
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Why does the Queen grant the Knight a reprieve? What task does
she give him?
226:
-
What is it that women desire most?
228:
-
Explain the comparison between gentility and fire.
230:
-
Explain the choice the old woman offers the knight.
231:
-
Is justice served in this tale? Does everyone get what he or she deserves?
Explain.
Other Discussion Questions:
619:
-
According to White, is the Wife's Prologue to be taken as a true confession?
Explain.
Prologue:
620:
-
Explain the reference to the Samaritan wife.
-
Explain the reference to Solomon.
621:
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Who is Lamech?
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Who are Abraham and Jacob?
622:
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Explain lines 107-112.
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According to the Wife of Bath, to what use should we put our "blessed
instruments"?
623:
-
Explain: "I have the power during all my life / Over his own good
body, and not he" (158-59).
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Who is Ptolemy?
626:
-
Who is Argus?
627:
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Explain: "Whoso comes first to mill, first gets meal ground" (387).
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Explain: "For profit would I all his lust endure" (414).
628:
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Who is Metellius?
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Describe the Wife's fourth husband.
629:
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Describe her fifth husband.
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Why did she love her "best of all" (503)?
630:
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What is "the print of holy Venus' seal" (594)?
631:
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Explain the references to Venus and Mars (599-610).
632:
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Explain the reference to women writers (683-86).
634:
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How does the Wife get her husband to burn his misogynist book and grant
her "the entire sovereignty" (808)?
Tale Proper:
225:
-
Who is Midas?
227:
-
What must the Knight give as reward to the old woman who gives him the
answer?
228:
-
Explain: "Christ wills we claim from Him gentility, / Not from
ancestors of landocracy."
229:
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Explain: "Good poverty's an honest thing."
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