An Analysis of The Wife of Bath Prologue Essay - 1241 Words

The Wife of Bath is a wealthy and elegant woman with extravagant, brand new clothing. She is from Bath, a key English cloth-making town in the Middle Ages, making her a talented seam stress. Before the wife begins her tale, she informs the audience about her life and personal experience on marriage, in a lengthy prologue. The Wife of Bath initiates her prologue by declaring that she has had five husbands, giving her enough experience to make her an expert on marriage. Numerous people have criticized her for having had many husbands, but she does not see anything immoral about it. Most people established negative views on her marriages, based on the interpretation of what Christ meant when he told a Samaritan woman that her fifth husband†¦show more content†¦Jankyn was different from the other husbands because she married him for love, not wealth. She first met Jankyn when she was still married to her fourth husband. While walking one day, she lied to him and told him that he had captivated her heart and she would marry him if she were to become a widow. Then, at her fourth husband’s funeral, she met Jankyn again and fell in love with him, getting married at the end of the month. Thinking she could handle his youth, she ended up regretting the vast age difference. She abused him because of her superiority by age; for this reason, she despised the large age difference. Soon thereafter, the Wife was agitated to discover that Jankyn spent a majority of his time reading a collection of books that ridiculed women. One night, Jankyn tortured the Wife of Bath, by reading aloud from this collection. It started with Eve first taking the apple in the Garden of Eden, bringing sin to all mankind; then he about read about Delilah’s disloyalty to Samson, Clytemnestra’s murder of Agamemnon, Lucilla poisoning Lucretius, and other prominent tales. Unable to bear it any longer, the Wife ripped three pages out of the book and hit Jankyn in the cheek. In return, Jankyn smacked her on her head, becoming deaf in one ear. Then, she pretended to be dying and asked for one last â€Å"good-bye† kiss, but instead she strikes him again and once more pretended to be dying. While declaring a truce, he felt so upset that he promisedShow MoreRelatedWife Of Bath Prologue Analysis1130 Words   |  5 PagesThe Wife of Bath’s Prologue The Wife of Baths Prologue On my paper, I decided to do the wife of Baths Prologue to the song lyrics I Do by Colbie Caillat. 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