How Chaucer Combines Realism and Convention through the Franklin

How does Chaucer combine realism and convention through the character and words of the Franklin?

The Franklin character is portrayed as a convention primarily by being a Franklin a nameless type. Chaucer’s audience is aware of the typical attributes of a Franklin so it is then up to Chaucer to further the character by incorporating realism through aspects of his personality. Therefore giving the reader a connection with the character and make them appreciate him more as a person.

In the prologue of the Franklin’s tale Chaucer makes his Franklin and individual, by showing his insecurity as a citizen in the shadow of the aristocracy, shown in his disdainful treatment and interruption of the squire.

“’In faith, Squier, thow hast thee wel yquit

And gentilly. I preise wel thy wit,’

Quod the Frankeleyn, ‘considerin thy yowthe’”

His patronising attitude reveals his insecurity portraying him as a realistic character but also adding to the conventional Franklin image. A Franklin being a ‘freeman’ he was rich and would have held a good position owning his own land, but he would never be at the same level as the noble classes and there would have been the obvious social climb and striving for further power Chaucer’s audience would have probably observed amongst Franklin’s. We see how the Franklin is striving for a better position for his own family incorporating the convention of the social climb and the realism of his family life.

“I have a sone, and by the Trinitee,

I had levere than twenty pound worth lond

Though it right now were fallen in myn hond,

He were a man of swich discrecioun

As that ye been.”

Through other more specific attributes of the Franklin realism is conveyed such as the outstanding generosity and hospitality of the man and his wide learning and travelling.

Chaucer further combines realism and convention in the tale the Franklin tells. At first it appears a very conventional unoriginal tale of courtly love, stolen from a Breton Lay, such was the style at the time to give your own twist on an existing story rather than make your own. It is full of stereotypical images you’d expect from a courtly love story. With the setting of a lady and a knight in the garden and then the characters themselves starting off as being solely types of the knight, lady and squire and how these characters all stay within their roles. The knight leaves the lady to go on a quest.