Love In The Miller's Tale

The Love Marriage Insanities

Dissecting love and marriage ideals is an impossible task because human actions in emotional situations often defy all logic. This has been proven again and again and is also corroborated by Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, that makes fun of the conventional beliefs about these relationships in the context of social classes and individual values such as bravery, morality, infidelity, and street smartness. Through the substance of the plots, styles of the narrators and the gap between the cherished and real values in The Knight’s Tale, and the Miller’s Tale, Chaucer highlights that human behavior in romantic relationships can be crazy, unpredictable and influenced by one’s social class setting, and therefore

As an example, Alyson handling of her two suitors outside her marriage, is not only slapstick comedy material but also a middle class perspective of the upper class imposed view of love. When Nicolas woos Alison aggressively after her husband leaves for work, “That she her love did grant him at the last, / … / That she would be at his command, content,” ( ) She was so enamored by the street smart Nicholas that she was willing to be at his “command and content” even if it was at expense of cheating her husband. In contrast to falling for the physical advances of Nicholas, Alyson not only spurns the dignified wooing by the parish clerk Absalom, she does this so by tricking him to kiss her her genitals. After that episode, "Teehee!" she laughed, and clapped the, window to; / And Absalom went forth a sorry pace.” ( ). Leaving aside the twists and turns of love situations, Alyson’s contrasting responses point to what is admired and scorned in a middle class setting. Alyson clearly values attributes such as street smartness, directness and physical advances of Nicholas. On the other hand, she makes a mockery of the upper class gentlemanly approaches of Absalom and humiliates him in the process. At the same time, Alyson’s infidelity disregards the

In the Prologue, he proudly states that “A husband must not be inquisitive / Of God, nor of his wife, while she's alive. / So long as he may find God's plenty there, / ...he need not greatly care." Through these words, the narrator is expressing his view that men shouldn’t care about their wives’ affairs and at the same time invoking God to say that there are lots of other women around. Maybe the narrator has loose morals. Or, his middle-class upbringing conditions him to real world pragmatism, a world in which physical sex and infidelity are no big deals. Instant gratification instead of the high-minded principles is the name of the game. It’s also an environment that rewards street smartness folks like Nicholas who don’t have time for poetic words but go for the “land grab”. Either way, the narrator’s choice of words and substance of his tale, sets up a significant contrast with the style and plot of the Knight’s