Elizabeth And John The Miller's Tale Essay

As exemplified throughout history, literature and life, love and sex have often been linked to each other without being mutually exclusive. Through our work this past year with Freud and Baumeister, we’ve learned a lot about the relationship between love and sex and the psychological corresponding between the two. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales provided a insight elaborating more on this relationship of love and sex through the tales of many characters in the series. Although both of these concepts are recurring events, one central theme seems to have connected the two in many of the stories. In the Canterbury Tales, manipulation is a key component in attaining both love and sex. This is demonstrated in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale, as

The Reeve’s Tale describes the occurrences of John and Adam who seek revenges on the Miller. The Reeve outwardly declares his happiness regarding the manipulation, “I could easily repay you with a tale of how a proud miller was tricked” (The Reeve’s Tale 10). This sense of accomplishment was obtained from manipulating the miller. Not only was the miller tricked, but his wife and daughter were too; “After a short while John the clerk leaped up and landed eagerly on this good woman” (The Reeve’s Tale 307-308). Baumeister shares, “ Overall, the theory is framed in terms of costs versus rewards.” (Baumeister 468). For the students, in their cost and reward analysis - manipulation would mean being able to gain the award, in this case, being sex. Baumeister's theory of self deception also reveals much about why the students acted as they did. “In contrast, self-deception becomes much more common and recognizable if it is understood more as a kind of wishful thinking, by which a person manages to end up believing what he or she wants to believe without the most rigorous justifi cations.” (Baumeister 148). John and Adam convince themselves that they want to partake in sexual activity with both the Miller’s daughter and