Written by Geoffrey Chaucer during the Middle Ages, these tales are told in a light-hearted tone and each contain a moral. The speakers of these tales are fascinating and diverse in their appearances, mannerisms, social statuses, and life experiences. They each represent a different aspect of medieval life. None two are more diverse in their characteristics than the hearty Wife of Bath and the dainty Prioress.

The appearances of the Prioress and the Wife of Bath are as different as night and day. The Prioress's features are described as being delicate and fragile, thus befitting her personality. However, she is not a wisp of a woman. As well as being dainty, Chaucer describes her as being rather tall. "Her nose was elegant, her eyes glass gray; her forehead, certainly, was fair of spread, almost a span across the brows I own; she w

The mannerisms and the personalities of the two women are contrasting as well. The wife was loud, outspoken and used to getting things her way. " In all the parish, not a dame dare stir towards the altar steps in front of her, and if indeed they did, so wrath was she as to be quite put out of charity." (459-462) She also loved to laugh and gossip with anyone. The Prioress, however, was "pleasant and friendly in her ways, and straining to counterfeit a courtly kind of grace, a stately bearing to her place." (142-144) When she ate, she was dainty in everything she did. She never dipped her fingers too deep into the bowl, and always primly wiped her mouth, never spilling anything onto her clothes. The Prioress also had a very special love for animals. " She used to weep if she but saw a mouse caught in a trap if it were dead or bleeding. And she had little dogs she would be feeding with roasted flesh, or milk, or fine white bread." (148-151) The Prioress was too prim and proper to be anything but quite and

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Approximate Word count = 680
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)