The Wife of Bath's Tale: Mirror of Her Mind

Description: The Wife's "long-winded autobiography" in WBP--a "wishful, wistful self-serving fantasy" and "long, stupendous performance" that seems to "thrill to the idea" of rape--reflects her personality through its "touchiness and pugnacity," "garrulous self-exhibition and self-projecting psychoanalysis of womankind," "nonchalantly imperious approach," "semi-deaf . . . loquaciousness and somewhat forced pretension," "brainwashing lecture," and other characteristic traits.