58 Sirena Renfrow – To Judge a Book by the Cover

Sirena Renfrow (she/her) is a fourth-year student at IU East majoring in Technical and Professional Writing. Sirena grew up in Plymouth, Indiana.  This is a close-reading style analysis of The Canterbury Tales she completed for English L306.  Professor Alisa Clapp-Itnyre notes, “I was thrilled with Sirena’s disabilities approach to the Canterbury Tales! It was fascinating to read her nuancing out whether characters had true disabilities or just bad teeth :-). She clearly knew the CT well enough to quote exactly as needed.  A pleasure to read!”

To Judge a Book by the Cover

Geoffrey Chaucer asks readers during The Canterbury Tales to envision the Pardoner as “bare-headed” with wisps of “hair as yellow as wax” and “glaring eyes such as has a hare” (675, 683-684). Is it fair to assume that the Pardoner would be an unsavory person?  In Emily Jewell’s honor thesis titled “Disability and Morality in The Canterbury Tales”, Jewell describes the prevalence of physiognomy in Chaucer’s story, as it is the Medieval belief that there exists a correlation between morality and appearance. While Chaucer generally uses a character’s physical description to highlight irony, such as with the Prioress, physical appearance is also used to denominate a character’s goodness and morality. While Jewell argues in her article how the use of physiognomy leads to discrimination toward disabilities, I believe that this is not so. Examining the characters of the Wife of Bath, the Pardoner, the Summoner, and the Prioress, I will argue that Chaucer draws a distinct separation between correlating morality with physical characteristics versus physical disability and even challenges the idea of only disabled characters taking the role of villains, framing beautiful characters as morally unjust.

First, it is important to explicate the difference between physical characteristics and physical disability within The Canterbury Tales. While a disability is a characteristic, these two concepts will be separated for clarity. The ADA describes physical disability as an impairment that “substantially limits one or more major life activity,” a major life activity meaning hearing, seeing, talking, or other basic functions (2023). Otherwise, a physical characteristic will be defined as a trait of the body that has no bearing on major life activities. With this definition in mind, the information given on several characters in The Canterbury Tales can now be categorized as a physical disability or a physical characteristic. Beginning with the Knight, a morally just character, he is described as “not gaily dressed,” in a “tunic of coarse cloth” (Chaucer 74-75). Tattered clothing has no bearing on any major life activities, therefore this is a physical description–the Knight is described with no physical disabilities. Further, the Pardoner, a morally unjust character, is described possessing “a voice as small as a goat has,” and the narrator states: “I believe [the Pardoner] was a eunuch or a homosexual” (Chaucer 688, 691). While the disability status of eunuchs is often debated, the Pardoner is not confirmed–in fact, it can be discerned that the narrator is being facetious, making a joke rather than a serious observation. Therefore, the Pardoner lacks a physical disability. An additional morally corrupt character is the Summoner, and much like the Pardoner, is described with undesirable physical features but without disability. The Summoner is described “as hot and lecherous as a sparrow”, having “white pustules” in which nothing “could cure him” (Chaucer 626, 632). While incurable white pustules may signify a chronic disease, it is never explicitly stated as something that inhibits any major life activities. Conversely, while Jewell asserts in her article that physiognomy is present within The Canterbury Tales, several morally corrupt characters are in truth described as incredibly beautiful. For example, the Prioress is a morally unjust character who embodies hypocrisy. Despite this, she is described as “very pleasant, and amiable in demeanor” (Chaucer 138). Applying the concept of physiognomy, audiences should assume that the Prioress is an admirable, moral character yet Chaucer disproves this further in his story. Each of these characters illustrate the difference between the physical descriptions of morally just characters and those that are corrupt. Morally unjust characters are typically, but not always, described with grotesque physical features, but not disabilities. Therefore, Chaucer does not portray the belief that those with disabilities are morally corrupt.

The Wife of Bath is perhaps the only character in The Canterbury Tales with a physical disability, yet she does not necessarily reflect an evil conscience. In Peter Beidler’s article “Wife of Bath: Some Critical Approaches”, Beidler provides some insight to the possible moral background of the Wife of Bath, whether she is truly a moral or immoral character. Beidler prefaces that the Wife of Bath is “a contradictory character” and “impossible to read” (100). Despite this, Beidler asserts that critics who take a psychological approach to The Canterbury Tales praise the Wife of Bath for her realistically complex character and psyche. Beidler further summarizes that many critics see the Wife of Bath “a complete human being, a person far more complex than a literary type” (100). All complete, complex people feature muddy morals as no real person is purely good or evil. Clearly, Chaucer purposefully created the Wife of Bath as a morally ambiguous character, separate from her disability. Chaucer entirely refuses to attribute any glaringly immortal qualities to the Wife of Bath in the General Prologue, as the narrator, and Chaucer effectively, express sympathy for the Wife of Bath’s disability, saying “she was somewhat deaf, and that was a pity” (446). In fact, the Wife of Bath is introduced as “a good WIFE OF beside BATH” (Chaucer 445). Whether Chaucer intended good to mean morally correct or simply a good wife, she is not framed as suspicious in the General Prologue, unlike the Pardoner or the Summoner. Continued, while scholars argue the nature of the Wife of Bath as a moral character, it is undeniable that Chaucer gave her many admirable qualities. The Wife of Bath is exceptionally well-read; she is able to quote the writings of several church fathers in addition to the Bible as a way to synthesize an argument against their teachings. Through her many marriages and life experience, she holds immeasurable common sense, as Chaucer states “she knew, as it happened, about remedies for love” (475). Additionally, the Wife of Bath wields admirable talent in a trade, having “such a skill in cloth-making / She surpassed them of Ypres and of Ghent” (Chaucer 447-448). Further, the existence of the Wife of Bath’s disability is almost negligible within The Canterbury Tales; Jewell writes in her essay that “the pilgrims are not as judgmental towards [the Wife of Bath]” and “she does not seem to face the same scrutiny as the other characters” (35). Other than when the cause of the Wife of Bath’s deafness is revealed, it almost serves no purpose. While some characters hold a strong connection to their morality and their appearances, such as the Pardoner and the Summoner, the Wife of Bath’s main qualities are the traits that evoke sexuality. Moreso, Chaucer does not attribute the Wife of Bath’s disability to her own doing, whether through her own birth or self-caused accident, instead Chaucer attributes the cause of her deafness to a previous husband and his own violence (636). Truly, the Wife of Bath’s morality is separate from her disability.

To directly refute Jewell’s essay, a majority of the corrupt characters in The Canterbury Tale are purely ugly and unsightly rather than disabled, and in some cases are even beautiful and well-dressed. As stated previously, the Prioress is a character of hypocrisy and moral corruption, as she speaks for her antisemitism and the belief of a “wasp’s nest in Jews’ hearts” (Chaucer 559). Further, Jewell expresses that our modern concept of disability did not exist during Chaucer’s time, resulting in her broadening of the definition of disability to qualities that are worthy of scrutiny (11). While the current concept of disability truly did not exist during Chaucer’s time, it would be an act of disservice to equate a simple malady to a life-altering disability as the two ideas are fundamentally different. Additionally, traits like greasy hair or bushy eyebrows play a significantly different role as characteristics versus the Wife of Bath’s true disability of deafness. While it is often unwise to view works of the past with a modern lens, it is clear that Chaucer himself draws a distinction between physical traits and disability.

Instead of Chaucer portraying the characters of The Canterbury Tales as a black of white group of ugly, disabled, immoral characters versus beautiful, moral characters, Chaucer instead cultivates a mosaic of people, ranging from moral, to morally gray, to immoral and varying in physical beauty. Characters like the Pardoner and the Summoner are not disabled, instead they are merely unsightly. Furthermore, Chaucer challenges the concept of beauty equaling moral rightness with characters like the Prioress and her pristine way of dress and looks. Truly, physical disability and stigma is a complex issue, but Chaucer does not fall into the harmful belief that those with disability are evil.

Works Cited

“The Canterbury Tales Text and Translations.” Harvard’s Geoffrey Chaucer Website, The President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2023, chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages/wife-baths-prologue-and-tale-0.

Chaucer, Geoffrey, and Peter G. Beidler. “Wife of Bath: Some Critical Approaches.” The Wife of Bath (Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism) , Bedford Books, Boston, MA, 1995, pp. 100–110.

Jewell, Emily. “Disability and Morality in The Canterbury Tales .” Emory Theses and Dissertations, Emory University, spring 2018, pp. 1–62, https://etd.library.emory.edu/concern/etds/q524jn838. Accessed 7 Dec. 2023.

“Top ADA Frequently Asked Questions.” ADA National Network, Dec. 2023, adata.org/faq/what-definition-disability-under-ada.