Name:
ENG 205. Reading Assignment/Activity on The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales pp. 261-281
Choose a character below, preferably one of the characters marked with an asterisk. Describe their occupation(s),
appearance, clothing, accessories, education, abilities, interests, personal/family life, food preferences and
eating/drinking habits, travels, and any vices or virtues. In what way is the person’s estate being criticized?

Knight*
Merchant
Doctor*

Squire
Clerk*
Reeve

Nun (Prioress)*
Sergeant
Miller

Monk
Franklin
Summoner*

Friar*
Shipman
Pardoner*

Cook
Wife of Bath*
Plowman

Parson*
Host
Yeoman
Character: Wife of Bath
Occupation: Cloth maker/seamstress
Clergy, nobility, middle class, or peasant? Middle class
Physical description: A bit deaf with a bold, fair, red face, and gap-toothed. Had wide hips.
Job/Occupational description: The Wife of Bath is a seamstress.
Abilities and Talents: The wife of bath has a beautiful talent of sewing cloth. She makes her own head coverings
that weigh at least ten pounds.
Likes and Dislikes: The wife of bath enjoys and believes in marriage as a Christian institution. She believes that a
woman can get what she wants through manipulation and sexual intercourse. The wife of bath doesn’t like the
idea that virginity is a virtue and that one should be married once. She believes that women should exert their
control over their husbands. She does not believe that women should obey their husbands.
Vices: The wife of bath brags about lying, cheating, and deceiving her husbands. She also takes exerts herself of
her husbands without obeying them.
Virtues: The wife of bath is independent and values her independence.
Is Chaucer criticizing or commending the social class of this character? Explain.
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Chaucer is criticizing the social class of this character by telling the audience how she doesn’t believe in
obeying her husbands. He is also criticizing her amount of husbands and the fact that she believes in
forcing herself upon them rather than letting them be dominant.