- Had you read The Canterbury Tales before reading this book? What was your impression, if any, of the Wife of Bath after reading Chaucer’s story about her?
- After being forced to accept a marriage to Fulk Bigod, Eleanor realizes to her surprise that “the man whom the villagers mocked and whispered about, who was said to be a bully at best and a murderer at worst, had shown me nothing but consideration and, for what it was worth, a welcome.” How did her first marriage set up the rest of Eleanor’s life?
- When Fulk talks about his daughter, Alyson, with Eleanor he says, “You’ll be good for her. And I know she’ll be good for you.” Was that true? Did it foreshadow what ultimately happened to Alyson and how it saved Eleanor?
- What did you make of Eleanor’s marriages of convenience to Turbet Gerrish and Mervyn Slynge? What did she gain from those marriages? How would you compare them to her later marriages, which were for love?
- What do Eleanor’s letters to Geoffrey Chaucer about her travels reveal about her? Why do you think she chooses to write him?
- When Eleanor has to flee to London, Geoffrey tells her to look on the bright side, exclaiming, “You’re a free woman once more—albeit poorer.” But is that truly a good thing? Would she have been better off staying and trying to fight for justice and to keep her wealth?
- When Eleanor finds out that the girls she cares for have turned to prostitution, she thinks, “If the girls were willing, if it’s what they wanted and were safe, was it so bad?” Do you agree? Does Eleanor truly feel this way, or do they simply have no other choice? What do you make of her later claim: “Reluctant though I’d been to become what I most loathed, someone who profited from a woman’s body, when the role was thrust upon me, I not only enjoyed the privilege, but was damn good at it too”?
- What did you think about Eleanor’s final encounter with Jankin? Was she right not to reclaim her identity and wealth, and let Sabyn have it instead? In the end, was justice truly served?
- Eleanor says of Chaucer, “Geoffrey was hardly a man, not in the way others were to me.” Is this true? Was the relationship somehow more true because it wasn’t sexual? What did you think of his deathbed letter, in which he writes to Eleanor, “You . . . have always been family to me. . . . You’re the wife of my soul”?
- In The Wife of Bath’s Tale in Chaucer’s original, the moral of the story is that what women most want is control. Do you agree? How would that idea have resonated in medieval times versus modern times?
- Karen Brooks subtitled this book “A (Mostly) True Story.” What do you think she meant by that? Who decides what’s true about Eleanor’s story?
