Female characters in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to develop a critical analysis of Geoffrey Chaucer's the Canterbury Tales, focused on the representation of the female characters as narrators and main characters of some tales. Moreover, a comparison between those characters will be presented in order to clarify and understand why it is believed that the selected characters are more relevant than the rest. The main aim of this paper is to show the type of image the author assignes to each woman throughout the different stories as well as the role they have. In addition, other parts will be included in this paper, such as Geoffrey Chaucer's biography, the historical background of that concrete period, the language used and its main features, women's situation at that time and the plot of few tales, since they are considered of great importance for a better understanding of the study. At the end of this project, we would have seen the different kind of women that existed during Geoffrey Chaucer's period (14th Century), their position and role along the different stories. Moreover, a short conclusion will summarise the main points of this work.