Anti-feminist beliefs in Miller's Tale and The Bath's Tale Miller's Tale and The Bath's Tale feature two characters who, although they may seem different, are actually very similar. Both seem to confirm the anti-female beliefs that existed at the time Chaucer wrote his Canterbury Tales. However, they do it in different ways. Alison, the woman in The Miller's Tale, tries to hide the fact that she has a passion for men other than her husband and to keep her position as an upstanding citizen intact. The Wife of Bath, meanwhile, has no qualms about showing herself for who she really is. She is not ashamed of having married five times and of being about to remarry. He doesn't hide anything. Although Alison differs from the Wife of Bath in appearance and the way she carries herself in public, on the inside they are more similar than Alison would probably like to admit. At the beginning of The Miller's Tale, there is a rather long description of Alison's appearance. It looks beautiful from the outside, true, but throughout the description Chaucer leaves little hints that things are not always what they seem. At the beginning of his description, he compares her body to that of a weasel ["Beautiful was this young wife, and then like every wesele her body gentle and small." (Miller 103)], and, since a weasel is not one of the most favorable animals to be compared to, it immediately, if subtly, implies that Alison is not as respectable as she would have you believe. Chaucer continues his apparently favorable description of Alison, but ends the paragraph by implying that Alison would have few qualms about sleeping with any man other than her husband ["She was a primary role, a pig... middle of paper... ...Miller's Tale, it's unclear whether the Wife of Bath would applaud Alison's getting herself out of a mess, or chastise Alison for hiding her true colors. What is certain, though, is that Alison and the Wife of Bath are actually two very similar characters. They just have different ways of expressing their similarity. Works cited and consulted Chaucer, Geoffrey. "Prologue and Tale of the Wife of Bath", The Riverside Gen. Ed. Third edition Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. 105-22.Evans, Joan The Flowing Middle Ages New York: McGraw Hill Book Company, 1966.Hallida, I.E. Chaucer and His World: Viking Press, 1968.Fuller, Maurice and His England Williamstown: Corner House Publishers, 1976.Williams, David. The Canterbury Tales, a literary pilgrimage. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1987.