Blooms Literary Themes - THE TRICKSTER.pdf - ymerleksi - home

“Th e Wife of Bath’s Tale” 231
yourself ”] (1238) and puts himself in her “wyse governance” [“wise
governance”] (1237). She transforms herself so that she is “bothe fair
and good” [“both fair and good”] (1247), and the pair lives “In parfi t
joye” [“In perfect joy”] (1264).
Th e Wife of Bath’s tale allegorizes the relationship between men
and women, using fantastic elements such as the court of women,
a heroic quest, and a magical transformation to comment on, as
she repeatedly declares, the “wo that is in mariage” [“woe that is in
marriage”] (3). She claims authority as the teller of this tale from her
personal experience through fi ve marriages. Indeed, she has been on
multiple “pilgrimages,” in a literal and fi gurative sense. Besides traveling
to a number of places, including “Rome [ . . . ] Boloigne [ . . . ]
Galice [ . . . ] and [ . . . ] Coloigne” [“Rome . . . Boulogne . . . Galicia
. . . and . . . Cologne”] (Prologue 465–466) as a religious pilgrim, she
has also journeyed to the “chirche dore” [“church door”] (460) fi ve
times, leading the narrator to conclude that “she coude of that art
the olde daunce” [“she knew the old dance of that art”] (476). Th ese
characteristics help to establish the Wife of Bath as well traveled
in all senses of the word. Th is is important because Chaucer never
loses sight of the relationship between words and the character who
speaks them.
Th e fi rst line of her prologue establishes an important opposition
that drives her self-representation as well as her depiction of male
and female roles in the tale. She distinguishes two ways of knowing
and ordering the world, one off ered by “experience” and the other by
“auctoritee,” or the written authority of secular law, holy scripture, and
ecclesiastical interpretations.
Th e Wife of Bath constantly repudiates the misogynistic logic of
classical authorities. Scholars have attempted to uncover Chaucer’s
complex views on gender and the power struggles that ensue in relationships,
but they have been unable to conclusively prove that the
Wife of Bath “speaks” his views directly or obliquely. What we do
know, however, is that the tale achieves its enduring power by eliding
simple identifi cations and conclusions. In the same way that the
romance privileges paradox, Chaucer’s connection of the characters in
the romance, the imaginary audience of pilgrims wending their way
toward Canterbury, and the reader prohibits any easy identifi cation
between these levels. Th e message, or “pistel” (Bath 1027), at the heart
of the tale changes meaning depending on who is doing the telling.