The female character that stands out most to me is the Wife of Bath. She is one of the most interesting characters in The Canterbury Tales. Some of her characteristics are manipulative, controlling, intelligent, and honesty.
In the prologue to her tale, she makes it clear how she has been able to manipulate her various husbands (and at the time it would have been unthinkable for a woman to marry more than once, let alone as many times as the Wife of Bath does) into giving her all of the land and money (another rarity of the time). She also goes into great detail about how she is willing to do whatever it takes to control them. For example, if she has a husband who cheats on her, she will cheat twice as much on him. If she has a husband who wants to control her, she will go out of her way to be uncontrollable. The Wife of Bath, whose name is Alice in our text, is obviously intelligent, for she quotes scripture and other classical texts to illustrate her argument for women's rights. She is well traveled and dressed too. And, ultimately, she is brutally honest for talking about such things so unabashedly in front of the other travelers. But these are just a few of the characteristics that make her such a wonderful personality.
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