The Canterbury Tales: The Wife of Bath's Tale The Canterbury
Tales: The Wife of Bath's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer  Tools of
Characterization  Character Analysis  Direct Characterization
The direct characterization we get in "The Wife of Bath's Tale"
is minimal. It's so minimal, in fact, that we thought we'd
mention the two instances of it, just for fun. The first is in
the description we get of the knight; the narrator calls him a
"lusty bacheler," which his very first action confirms. The
second instance of direct characterization occurs when the
knight sees the loathly lady sitting alone in a field. About
her, the narrator tells us, "A fouler wight ther may no man
devyse" (1005). And that's it. No, really, that's it.   This is
a big one in "The Wife of Bath's Tale," because the only other
means of characterization we get is direct characterization, of
which there are only two instances (see above). We have to
depend on characters' actions for everything else we know about
them. So what can we learn from what