In this paper I will look at the character of Alyson, the Wife of Bath from the Canterbury Tales. She is a very wealthy, well-traveled woman as she has traveled around Europe and she has traveled on the pilgrimage to Jerusalem a total of three times Alyson is a very talkative, brash and sexual woman, who is a seamstress by vocation. Throughout her prologue she brags about the number of affairs and marriages that she has had. She has been married a total of five times and her current husband is half of her age. Besides her affinity for marriage and sex, she also has a taste for the lavish as she takes pleasure in wearing fine, extravagant attire. Her face is covered in heavy cloth, she wears shoes made from new leather and her stocking are a bright scarlet color. This shows that she is extremely wealthy and that she likes to live a life of grandeur as her stockings would have been outrageously expensive as the dye for them would have been created from crushed beetles and other insects. Alyson throughout the trip and in her own story proves that she does not abide by the societal rules that were placed upon women at that time. She is very loud, and argumentative. She is also slightly deaf in one ear and she has a gap between her front teeth. This was considered to be attractive during Chaucer’s time.
Alyson with her boisterous personality and opinionated nature was the forerunner of today’s feminists. She is only one of two women on the trip. The other is a Prioress, who remains within the dictates of male society. Alyson on the other hand, blatantly dismisses expectations and lives according to her own rules and desires. This behavior is shocking to the other people on the trip, especially when it comes to her beliefs on marriage. The responses from the men on her views of marriage range from them claiming that they are heretical because they go against what the church teaches. Some of the men claim that it is women who think like her that make them want to remain single.
Her prologue gives a view of marriage that is contradictory to that of which the other pilgrims know or can understand. She then tells a story in which she proves her point. In her story after one of King Arthur’s knight rapes a woman and is sentenced to death. Arthur agrees to allow Queen Guinevere to punish him instead of going through with the execution. Guinevere tells him that he has a year and one day to tell her what it is that women really want in a relationship. As the knight’s deadline looms closer and he still does not have a solid answer. He meets an ugly old hag. She tells him that she will give him the answer if he promises to do whatever she asks of him afterwards. He agrees and she reveals that what women really want is sovereignty over their own lives. When the Knight tells this to Guinevere, it is the answer that she seeks. The hag then has the knight marry her as per their agreement. On their wedding night she turns into a beautiful woman and gives him a choice. She can either be ugly and old but faithful, or she can be beautiful and flirtatious. He decides to allow her to choose which one she would be. She decides that she will be both beautiful and faithful.
Alyson told this story to demonstrate her ideals that if a woman is given the choice in her life that she will choice to be faithful. It is only when a woman is caged and controlled that she seeks freedom from her oppressor. This will cause her to have affairs with other men. She holds her convictions and views so strongly and is able to convey them so adamantly that none of the other pilgrims can argue against her. She also believes that in order for a man and a woman to have a happy marriage the man must be willing to give sovereignty of the house over to his wife. In her opinion, this is the only way that a man can guarantee that his wife is happy and that he will have a happy marriage. She obtains this sovereignty in her current marriage by being married to a man who is half her age. She is also willing to use her sexuality and to withhold sex if she does not get what she wants.
Not only does the Wife of Bath state her beliefs adamantly, she also refers to a number of scholarly sources to support her pint of view. When a source goes against her views she dismisses it and argues against it using her own life experience. This is because she feels that her own experience of having five husband gives her more authority on the subject then that of a scholar. Alyson despite being loud and brash speaking, proves herself to be very intellectual and full of common sense as she argues against the belief of the time period that women were to be subjugated to men. The reason that she believes this way is because she has had a number of different experiences with her various husbands. For example, one of her husbands was abusive and is the reason that she is deaf in one ear. It is for reasons such as these that Alyson has developed such a strong and forceful personality.
Works Cited
Beidler, Peter G. "Deconstruction and the Wife of Bat." Geoffrey Chaucer The Wife of Bath (1996): 221-54. Web. 19 May 2016.
Beidler, Peter G. "Feminist Criticism and the Wife of Bat." Geoffrey Chaucer The Wife of Bath (1996): 255-89. Web. 19 May 2016.
"Chapter 4. Gender as Fallibility: Chaucer’s Wife of Bath and the Impediment of Sex." Fallible Authors Chaucer's Pardoner and Wife of Bath (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 19 May 2016.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Wife of Bath's Tale. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. Print.
"Feminist Readings in Middle English Literature." (1994): n. pag. Web. 19 May 2016.
Lisowska, Pauline Sidey., and Tony Buzan. A Guide to The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2000. Print.
