Patti Caruthers
Précis
The charge that the Wife of Bath murdered her fourth husband was not well accepted and did not convince many readers due to Vernon Hall's report in The Baker Street Journal, volume three: "...[I]t is now time to clear Alison's name and return her to those halcyon days when she stood accused of nothing worse than being an icon of fallen willfulness" (Crane 10). Alison's keen interest in men and her large number of husbands made her well-known as a seeker of men. It could be argued that she was only increasing her options with her interest in Jankyn in the event that her current husband were to pass away. Factual evidence to speak of her intent to actually kill or have her husband killed are both "insubstantial and ambiguous" (Crane 10).
Much more evidence is needed to draw the conclusion that Alison was guilty of murdering her husband and that her own narrative proves such. Her ability to seduce men was deeply ingrained in her feminism, but she deliberately elaborated on this point in her tale and thus provided herself with a defense from such accusations. Alison, a created literary character, and Jankyn's fictional book of the evils of women could not be taken as pure fact, leaving her innocent of such sins. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that literature strives to imitate realistic life, yet since she is fictional the two are not connected. When reading Alison's tale, one must consider the limitations of her representation and realize that she can only be taken at face value without speculation of her past or of her mind-sets, lest the reader assume Chaucer's role as the poet. In the same vein, those who would locate her in a mentally unstable state due to early sexual experiences or as having a "sociopathic personality disturbance" (Sands 171) as a result of alcohol addiction overlook the idea of art as "Otherness" (Crane 12). The character of Alison does not exist "'before' or 'behind' the poetry" (Crane 13). Instead she must be taken as is, for to add human characteristics to her is to alter her literary identity as a fictional figure and to detract from Chaucer's intent in the Wife of Bath's Prologue.
Alison as an icon or representation of lechery is another idea that has been entertained by critics; however, this depiction places her in a position to exemplify all of the greatest evils of womanhood. The question of murder would have to be assumed in this case and should not come as a surprise to the reader given the framework of the stereotypical evil woman of the Middle Ages as detailed in Jankyn's book. Though the character Alison was created as a satire of her opposition, her tale indirectly refuted all of Jankyn's book and closed the idea of her representing lechery alone. To consider her an example of what a woman should not be is to completely reduce her, and though her ability to murder falls under question, the evidence for it leads us to conclude "case dismissed" (Crane 15).