Wives of Bath

title

Susan Swan

Mouse encounters the teachers and matrons of the boarding school “who remind her of

Chaucer’s Wife of Bath because they are the only women she has met who live by their own

rules.” (“Preface” vii)

Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

a series of stories of pilgrims’ travels

written @ 1380

tale: “Prologue of The Wife of Bath”

Mouse

“We were all Wives of Bath – from the teachers who terrorized us with their bells and gatings to the overfed boarders and snobby day girls..but no matter how hard any of us struggled...Bath

Ladies College was only a fiefdom in the kingdom of men.”

drama

character

flat and round

E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel (1927)

characters are collections of contradictions

DISCUSS in your GROUP

flat or round?

what conflicts or contradictions does the character represent?

what does he/she bring to the story?

TO DO: pick a passage that shows an example of one of the above

mouse

alice

tory

paulie

sal

miss vaughn

lewis

letters to jfk

king kong

the 3 challenges

the trial