Critically examine the concluding part of Alisoun's tale and its thematic link with Chaucer's description of the Wife of Bath in the Prologue.Refer...

In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, the Wife
of Bath's tale directly coincides with what we learn of her in the
Prologue.

All of the characters on the pilgrimage to Canterbury (the
structural device that allows Chaucer to bring together all of these people of diverse
backgrounds and social standings) must tell a tale, thereby passing the evenings at the
inn.

[Note: there are several versions of this tale floating
around.]

The Wife of Bath (Alisoun) tells the tale of a knight who
rapes a woman in Arthur's court. The Queen allows that she will spare his life if he can, over
the next year, find what it is a woman really wants. (This tale obviously has a moral, which the
knight must learn and share on his return.)

The knight searches,
with no success, until the last day of his year's reprieve when he meets an old hag along the
road. She tells him that she has the answer, but that in exchange for it, he will owe her
whatever favor she may ask.

The knight agrees and they return to the
castle. There the woman provides the knight with the answer: a woman wants sovereignty (rule)
over her husband. (In other words, we could say she wants her way in all things with her
husband.)

The Queen accepts the answer and the knight's life is
spared. However, now the hag makes her request of the knight: to marry her. He doesn't want to do
it, but he has given his word, and they marry. After the wedding, the knight unchivalrously
complains that the woman is an old, unattractive peasant.

However,
the hag has magic powers and can turn herself into a beautiful woman. She provides her new
husband with a choice: you may have me beautiful by day and faithless by night, or ugly by day
and faithful at night. This now, is her test of the her husband. He decides to give his wife her
way in choosing what she wants. Having learned his lesson, she rewards
him, becoming beautiful and
faithful.

The Wife of Bath has been married five times and is
looking for husband number six. She is not a beautiful woman: she is large, with a 'gap-toothed
smile,' but she is also, it would seem, a passionate, bawdy woman with much to offer a man in the
bedroom, referred to as "an art..." (love-making) "...in which she knew the oldest
dances:"

In company
she liked to laugh and chat

And knew the remedies for love's
mischances,

An art in which she knew the oldest dances. (lines
472-474)

The Wife of Bath's tale is
directed to those who would judge her based upon her looks, as does the knight with the hag,
rather than what she has that a man would enjoy, though others would not see this in her. She
suggests that potential husband number six, whoever he might be, not judge her by what he sees,
but by what cannot be seen with only one's eyes.