Immorality and moral ambiguity are two concepts that will ruin any relationship. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, he specifically illustrates through his pilgrims’ stories some comical and realistic events that display immorality in the Middle Ages. There are several characters whose stories are focused on presenting the immorality within their tales. Like that of “The Miller’s Tale,” and “The Merchant’s Tale.” Chaucer utilizes these tales to display one specific immoral act, which is sexual sin or lust. Chaucer addresses the seven deadly sins in his novel; The Canterbury Tales, lust can be highlighted in two major tales “The Miller’s Tale,” and “The Merchant’s Tale” which help display key elements of the immorality in the Middle Ages.
Marriage is an aspect of medieval society that strives to remain pure and innocent, but when the sin of lust is compounded, problems start to rise. The marriages during the middle ages are not much different than present day, because they originate by a physical, emotional, and mental attraction between two people of the opposite sex. Chaucer demonstrates several different circumstances dealing with marriages. Most are comic in nature, and illustrate crude, sexual humor (Varnam, 1). The first circumstance that Chaucer addresses is a “January and May,” relationship. This is a situation where an older man falls in love with a scandalous young girl in “The Merchant’s Tale.” In this specific case, she deceives him to believe that she is innocent (Rogers 2: 385). January has a description in “The Merchant’s Tale,” of being single for over sixty years and he has reached a point in his life when he wanted to experience the bliss of marriage. January chooses May because of enticing feelings o...
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...n, Islamic, and Judaic- from Constantine to Dante: A.D. 325-1300. Vol. 4. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1950. 819-844. Print.
Parry, Joseph D. “Interpreting Female Agency and Responsibility in ‘The Miller’s Tale’ and ‘The Merchant’s Tale’.” Philological Quarterly. 80.2(2001): 133+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 30 Oct. 2011.
Rogers, Shannon L. All Things Chaucer: An Encyclopedia of Chaucer’s World. Vol. 2. Westport: Greenwood, 2007. 385, 288-292. Print.
Rogers, Shannon L. All Things Chaucer: An Encyclopedia of Chaucer’s World. Vol. 1. Westport: Greenwood, 2007. 107-109. Print.
Varnam, Laura. “Chaucer’s Fabulous Fabliaux: Laura Varnam Shows That Chaucer’s Miller’s and Merchant’s Tales Both Conform to and Transgress the Expectations of the Popular Comic Genre of the Fabliaux.” The English Review. Feb. 2007: 28+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 30 Oct. 2011.
Cornelius, Michael G. "Sex and Punishment in Geoffrey Chaucer's 'The Miller's Tale.'" Human Sexuality. New York: Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2009. 95-104. [ILL]
Toswell, M.J. "Chaucer's Pardoner, Chaucer's World, Chaucer's Style: Three Approaches to Medieval Literature." College Literature 28.3 (2001): 155. Literature Resource Center. Web. 25 Feb. 2011.
Boardman, Phillip C. "Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400)." Enduring Legacies: Ancient and Medieval Cultures. 6th ed. Boston: Pearson Custom Pub., 2000. 430-54. Print.
The structure Geoffrey Chaucer chose for his masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, of utilizing a melange of narrative voices to tell separate tales allows him to explore and comment on subjects in a multitude of ways. Because of this structure of separate tales, the reader must regard as extremely significant when tales structurally overlap, for while the reader may find it difficult to render an accurate interpretation through one tale, comparing tales enables him to lessen the ambiguity of Chaucer’s meaning. The Clerk’s Tale and The Merchant’s Tale both take on the institution of marriage, but comment on it in entirely different manner, but both contain an indictment of patriarchal narcissism and conceit.
There are seven deadly sins that, once committed, diminish the prospect of eternal life and happiness in heaven. They are referred to as deadly because each sin is closely linked to another, leading to other greater sins. The seven deadly sins are pride, envy, anger, sloth, gluttony, avarice, and lechery. Geoffrey Chaucer's masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, provided an excellent story about the deadly sins. Focusing mainly on the sins of pride, gluttony and greed, the characters found in The Canterbury Tales, particularly The Pardoner's Tale, were so overwhelmed by their earthly desires and ambitions that they failed to see the effects of their sinful actions, therefore depriving themselves of salvation.
From The Riverside Chaucer, Third Edition. Ed. Larry D. Benson, Ph.D. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1987. Chaucer, Geoffrey. A. The Canterbury Tales.
Chaucer’s book The Canterbury Tales presents a frame story written at the end of the 14th century. It narrates the story of a group of pilgrims who participate in a story-telling contest that they made up to entertain each other while they travel to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. Because of this, some of the tales become particularly attractive for they are written within a frame of parody which, as a style that mocks genre, is usually achieved by the deliberate exaggeration of some aspects of it for comic effect. Chaucer uses parody to highlight some aspects of the medieval society that presented in an exaggerated manner, not only do they amuse the readers, but also makes them reflect on them. He uses the individual parody of each tale to create a satirical book in which the behaviours of its characters paint an ironic and critical portrait of the English society at that time. Thus, the tales turn satirical, ironic, earthy, bawdy, and comical. When analysing the Knight’s and the Miller’s tale, one can realise how Chaucer mocks the courtly love convention, and other social codes of behaviour typical of the medieval times.
Cooper, Helen. "Deeper into the Reeve’s Tale, 1395-1670." Pp. 168-184. In Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer. Ruth Morse and Barry Windeatt, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990.
Mandell, Jerome. Geoffrey Chaucer : building the fragments of the Canterbury tales. N.J. : Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1992.
In the Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Chaucer illustrates the different perspective between men and women on the concept of marriage and love. In The Wife of Bath’s tale, it is shown the woman appreciating marriage and wanting to be able to love a man unconditionally as where in The Miller’s Tale, love isn’t anything, but sex with the man in the story. In accordance with Chaucer, the complication with marriage is that men are consumed by sexual desire and are easily abused by women like The Wife of Bath. As noticed, The Miller’s Tale is all about adultery. “Just like men, the wives have secrets, as does God”, says the Miller. Both have information that the other do not know about that are sacred and better left unsaid.
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is a collection of stories by a group of pilgrims who are heading to Canterbury Cathedral. In this book, the pardoner and the reeve show antipodal characters in many ways. The pardoner is beautiful blonde hair man who is being loved by everyone. However he is very corrupted and smart and sells fake religious stuff to people saying very good compliment. On the other hand, the reeve is very serious and honest business man. He is very smart enough to know what criminals think and do. The pardoner story-tells a great example (or tale?) of seven deadly sins and reeve’s story is mocking of the miller. These very different characteristic men tell story telling that human beings are always punished for being greedy. The crooked pardoner and the honest reeve have different purposes for telling their tales, but their stories have the same major theme; sins deserve punishment.
Throughout the ages, the story of the original sin is used to explain the struggles of women and why they are inferior to man. Eve “took of [the forbidden tree’s] fruit and ate” (Genesis 3:6), and as punishment, God made it so “[her husband] shall rule over her” (3:16). As an important text during the lifetime of the characters who tell the collection of stories that compose the Canterbury Tales, most of the pilgrims were familiar with this scripture and believed that the Bible’s word was law. For that reason, the popular belief of the time was that women were inferior to their male counterparts. However, a couple of characters in the tales challenge this viewpoint and show that women were also capable of making their own choices. As the pilgrims struggle with the issue of where women belong, their view of Eve in the story of original sin is altered as well. From mild indifference to intimate involvement, each pilgrim has a different attachment to the story of the Eve, and their views on women in society are reflected in their connection to the story.
Hansen, Elaine. Chaucer and the Fictions of Gender. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. 188-207.
Mitchell, J. Allan. (2005). Chaucer's Clerk's Tale and the Question of Ethical Monstrosity. Studies in Philology. Chapel Hill: Winter 2005. Vol.102, Iss. 1; pg. 1, 26 pgs
Chaucer, Geoffrey. "The Project Gutenberg EBook of Troilus and Criseyde." 12 July 2008. Project Gutenberg. Web. 27 November 2013.