Competition For Women In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

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Women are prizes to be won over in this tale. Competition for women is portrayed throughout the entire story. This competition leads to lies and deceit which overall creates an unstable conflict. But, because of the way of life, the people who don’t lie and deceit still lose out in the end. Therefore, Chaucer teaches us that life isn’t fair and that people don’t always get what they deserve. This tale is essentially how to win over a woman successfully. Multiple people love her, but she only chooses one person to love her. But in the end, all three lovers make some sort of mistakes. To summarize, the first lover of Alison, is John. He is actually married to her, but Alison being insensitive falls in love with Nicholas. Meanwhile this entire time Absolon is trying to get Alison to love him formally. Nicholas, …show more content…

But, throughout the entire tale, lies and deceit are used, all in the name of love. The gullibility of falling for lies and the people who have lied are all shown to face some sort of negative consequence. John gets humiliated in front of everyone. Nicholas gets burned badly. Absolon has the shame of kissing a girl’s rear. And Alison, who is an accomplice in all of these acts, is pulled around in this love …show more content…

This whole tale clearly depicts the injustice that occurred upon John just because he was extremely gullible. It was not fair that his society believed the words of few, rather than actually investigating the truth. This social problem was exploited throughout the tale. This also applies to love itself. In this tale, “everything is fair in love and war”, but Chaucer clearly shows society should not be like this. Society should not take into account love, but facts. Whomever is at fault should be punished, but not the way as Chaucer depicts society to

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