Re-read the Ending of the Miller's Tale. How Far Do You Consider It to Be a Satisfying Conclusion?

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Recommended: Summary of The Miller's Tale

Following its fast, action-packed pace, "The Miller's Tale" climaxes with a series of causes and effects and ends rather abruptly with Chaucer's short summary on the sequence of events. On one hand the brusque ending of "The Miller's tale" is appropriate to the nature of The Miller himself, we know him to be a drunk, rude man who, "abide no man for his curtsies," and this ending seems to reflect that behaviour. However on the other hand, as the reader, do we feel "The Miller's Tale," is missing an imperative moral?

In "The Miller's Prologue," Chaucer intervenes in his own voice to remind the audience the Miller is a "cherle," and if they want "gentilllesse," "moraralitee" and "holinesses," they should "turne over the leef," and choose a different tale that would suit their taste. Through distancing himself from the tale, Chaucer shows he has no didactic purpose for the tale and therefore he has not written it to teach "moraralitee." Chaucer is not trying to condemn or recommend the behaviour of his bawdy characters, his objective for the tale is to entertain, "eek shal nat maken earnest of game." So we should be satisfied with Chaucer's lack of morality in the ending of the tale as it is in Chaucer's opinion and should not take seriously what is meant in jest.

However in "The Miller's Tale," Chaucer presents us with characters that are punished for being deeply flawed. Therefore as readers we naturally make our own moral judgements on the characters' behaviour. Chaucer indicates to us that the setting of "The Miller's Tale," is religious, through details such as Absolon's occupation as a, "parissh clerk" or John fetching the wood from the monastery. However Chaucer makes it clear through using this religious backdrop for "Th...

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..."joly colt," is that she will forever more be contained within the affluent prison of marriage.

Therefore the safest conclusion to make is that the ending of the "The Miller's Tale" is satisfactory in that is a fall from grace for everyone concerned in the story. At the level of the plot, the characters fall because of their overambitious aspirations, but thematically the fall is one of humiliation for a group of characters who are exposed as social climbers. If we are to be satisfied with any moral for the tale at all, the moral is has to offer is a social one. However it was Chaucer's intention to entertain, he warned us from the beginning if it was "moralitee," we were after; we were not going to find it in "The Miller's Tale." I feel that the ending of the tale is suitable and satisfactory for a tale that has been written to divert and amuse its audience.

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