Return to Literature home Page

A Psychoanalysis of the Wife of Bath by Emily Cooper

GCE 'A' Level examination criteria expects candidates to be able to offer alternative points of view to their own in the process of offering an answer to questions set.

This is an analysis of the Wife of Bath as Freudians may offer it.

The Wife of Bath has a large id. This is the part of the mind not concerned with rules but only self-gratification.

She has a small superego. This is her awareness of social rules and conventions in society. It guides towards socially acceptable behaviour.

She is fixated in a particular stage, in a need of sexual gratification which she didn't receive earlier. Therefore she must have missed or had too little gratification in the genital stage of Freud's theory, which involved forming loving relationships. The wife cold not have married for love at this stage.

Most of the Wife's problems relate back to her childhood.

Her constant contradictions show her not to be as confident as she would like. Inside she is someone who desperately needs to be looked up to. However, she has little self-esteem and is afraid of most things. She hides behind continuous talking, mainly to convince herself.

Her constant need for attention is shown through her elaborate clothes and need to shock. She is obviously unhappy with herself, or even lonely.

She tends to make a joke out of too much, especially sex. As people joke about things that make them uncomfortable, this would suggest that she is uncomfortable too. She may possibly have been abused from a young age, and joking may be a survival technique to exert power over a situation.

She is quite possibly a manic depressive, which is characterised by mood swings. Symptoms include increased sexual desire, reckless decisions, increase in social and sexual activity, rapid speech and talkativeness. A psychodynamic approach relates depression to early trauma.