The Miller’s Tale in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is a story about a carpenter and his wife, and the two clerks who are pursuing her love. The two clerks were infatuated with the carpenter’s wife, and they employed peculiar strategies in an attempt to capture her attention and ultimately her affection. The two clerks used plans that revolved around religious doctrines and axioms as a tactic of establishing their pursuit as credible. Their use of religion is the reason for the success or failure of all three male characters’ objectives.
Nicholas, the student boarder at the house of John, wants to sleep with Alison because he admires her beauty and elegance; and uses his knowledge of religion as his main tool in achieving his goal. Nicholas had come up with a plan. Nicholas told Alison to tell John that he was ill and lay in his room until the carpenter sent his slave to check on Nicholas’s health. The slave saw Nicholas’s eyes gaping upward as if possessed and called to the carpenter, who panicked and attributed Nicholas’ state to his profession in astrology. John thought Nicholas had seen the secrets of God and gone mad. John ordered his slave to wake Nicholas from his trance. Nicholas promised to tell John about what he had learned in heaven and John was shocked as Nicholas told him that next Monday, a flood similar to Noah’s flood would occur. Surreptitiously, Nicholas and Alison plan to desert their tubs when the carpenter falls asleep so that they can sleep together without the carpenter’s knowing. Nicholas uses the absurd story about the return of the flood as his main tool of removing the carpenter from the arrangement and having the opportunity to sleep with Alison. When John is sleeping in his tub, Alison and N...
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...imited knowledge of religion is what led him to accept Nicholas’s story and his subsequent humiliation in society.
Their use of religion is the reason for the success or failure of all three male characters’ objectives. The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories that were told during a pilgrimage to St. Thomas’s Tomb in Canterbury and a religious undertone was present throughout the stories. The life of people in late 1400s was heavily based around religion and religious institutions were in control of every aspect of life and people believed these institutions without any questions. This is similar to John’s thinking and naïve belief in Nicholas’s story. The religious institutions are not as powerful today as they were in the Middle Ages. Today, stories of the Great Flood would be struck down quickly due to the advances in science, technology, and education.
The Merchant's Prologue and Tale presents the darkest side of Chaucer's discussion on marriage. Playing off both the satire of the moral philosopher, the Clerk, and the marital stage set by the Wyf of Bathe, the Merchant comes forth with his angry disgust about his own marital fate. Disillusioned and depraved, the Merchant crafts a tale with a main character who parallels his own prevarication and blind reductionism while he simultaneously tries to validate his own wanton life by selling his belief to the other pilgrims. As both pervert reality through pecuniary evaluations on different levels, however, both are exposed to be blind fools, subject to the very forces that they exert on others. As this reversal happens and the Merchant satirizes Januarie blindness, Chaucer reveals the Merchant's blindness, giving him the very significance that he had spent his whole tale trying to deny.
Chaucer's "The Miller's Tale" should be tragic, because a lot of horrible things happen to the characters. The carpenter's wife is disloyal to him, sleeping with others and making fun of him with Nicholas. Also, he is depicted as a fool. However, readers get a humorous feeling from the story, rather than feeling sorry for the carpenter's unfair life. Chaucer makes the whole story come across as comic rather than tragic. This humor is created by the Miller's narration, the use of irony, the cartoon-like characters, and the twists of plot. These elements combine to produce an emotional distance which enhances the comic effect.
Forbes, Shannon. "'To Alisoun Now Wol I Tellen Al My Love-Longing': Chaucer's Treatment of the Courtly Love Discourse in the Miller's Tale." Women's Studies 36.1 (2007): 1-14. Academic Search Premier. Web. 16 May 2013
Some say women can get the worst out of a man, but in The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1485, proves it. The tales were originally written as a collection of twenty four tales, but has been narrowed down to three short tales for high school readers. The three tales consist of “The Miller”, “The Knight”, and “The Wife of Bath” along with their respective prologues. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer shows the weak but strong role of women throughout the “The Knight’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” to contrast different human characteristics and stereotypes on the spectrum of people.
In the Miller's Tale, Chaucer blatantly mocks courtesy and courtly love in Nicholas’ exchange with Alison:
Alison in the Miller's Tale and May of the Merchant's Tale are similar in several ways. Both are young women who have married men much older than themselves. They both become involved with young, manipulative men. They also conspire to and do cuckold their husbands. This is not what marriage is about and it is demonstrated in both tales. What makes the Miller's Tale bawdy comedy and the Merchant's tale bitter satire is in the characterization. In the Miller's tale we are giving stereotyped characters. The principals are cardboard cut-outs sent into farcical motion. The Merchant's Tale gives us much more background and detail of the character's lives. The reader is more involved and can feel their situations. Here we will focus on the two women of each tale and how they demonstrate this difference.
The Virtue of Men and Women in The Canterbury Tales People never change. In every town you will always be able to find the "rich guy," the "smart guy," the "thief," and the "chief." It has been that way since the first man was swindled out of his lunch. Throughout his life, Geoffrey Chaucer encountered every kind of person and brought them to life for us in "The Canterbury Tales," a collection of short stories written in the 1300's. There are tales of saints, tales of promiscuity, tales of fraud, and tales of love.
What is Pornography? When asked some people might say, “I can not define it, but I know it when I see it.” The word “Pornography” comes from the Greek for writing about prostitutes. Many people concluded that the Miller’s tale was merely a pornographic story that surrounded four people. This also depended on one’s view of pornography. The Miller’s tale was told by the Miller who was not stable at the time. The Miller’s tale focused on two men, Nicholas and Absolon whose goal is to establish a relationship with Alisoun, the attractive adolescent wife of an older carpenter named John. Alisoun on one hand used old-fashioned romantic strategies such as dressing up in lavish clothes and singing. Nicholas on the other hand tricked John into believing that a Noah’s flood was coming, which forced him to spend the night in a tub on the roof while he gets his way with Alisoun. In the dark, Alisoun played a brutal trick on Absolon, who in return became enranged and burned Nicolas’ bottom. As a consequence, John crashed onto the floor and broke his arm. Many have argued the Miller’s tale is simply a pornographic story, but it is not the case. There were many themes that gave this story its meaning and purpose to the reader. These three themes include sex, love, and religion.
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer are a collection of Middle English short stories written about a group of pilgrims telling tales as they journey to the shrine of St Thomas Becket. In this collection of tales, Chaucer introduces a slew of interesting characters representing all walks of life who present intriguing stories of their lives. The character of Chaucer serves as our guide throughout this story. Chaucer’s narration is unique in that we see him both as someone who could be there in the tavern with the group but at other times, Chaucer is a narrator who seems to know far more than he should. With this type of narration, we gain different perspectives on the pilgrims and
Before reaching his destination , John begins to allow nature to be his mentor. “The three deer passed in the valley, going east….I followed them”(Benét 77). He travels alone, relying on the fauna to guide him the right way. John arrives to the place of the gods where his ignorance comes into play again. He sees a variety of appliances but is not aware of their names. “There was a cooking place but no wood, and though there was a machine to cook food, there was no place to put fire in it” (Benét 82). He is describing an oven but living from an isolated world for decades, John is a stranger to all things modern. After more investigating, he falls asleep and dreams about the past. John is perplexed by the new things he had never seen before, “When gods war with gods, they use weapons we do not know. It was fire falling out of the sky and mist that poisoned” (Benét 84). It is noticeable to the audience that John is again envisioning technology that he is not familiar with. He then encounters a “dead god” and soon realizes something life-changing about the gods, “...they had been men neither gods or demons….They were men” (Benét
In the Miller’s Tale, the story tells of a carpenter and his wife, Allison and how she is pursued by multiple men. The first man to pursue her is Nicolas, a man boarding with the Miller. When the carpenter is away he begins flirting with Allison in hopes of making love. Originally she refuses, but eventually she gives in to his will. Chaucer seems to be pointing out that women are easily swayed by temptation by showing us that Allison is unable to stop herself from making love with Nicolas. In addition Chaucer is also showing us how disloyal women can by using Allison’s extramarital affair as an example. However this stereotyping is not just limited to women in the miller tale but also reaches men too. Later in the story, Nicolas manages to convince the carpenter that there is going to be a massive flood and that he should hide. However this is all just a lie, which Nicolas is using to get the carpenter out of the way so he can be with Allison. Through the carpenter, it seems as if Chaucer is pointing out that men are generally gullible and easily fooled. The stereotyping continues when Absolon enters the story and attempts to woo the likes of Allison. Absolon is unsuccessful in his attempt to woo her however, and Allison tricks him by pretending to offer him ...
In his Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer assembles a band of pilgrims who, at the behest of their host, engage in a story-telling contest along their route. The stories told along the way serve a number of purposes, among them to entertain, to instruct, and to enlighten. In addition to the intrinsic value of the tales taken individually, the tales in their telling reveal much about the tellers. The pitting of tales one against another provides a third level of complexity, revealing the interpersonal dynamics of the societal microcosm comprising the diverse group of pilgrims.
Florio, Thomas A., ed. “Miller’s Tales.” The New Yorker. 70 (1994): 35-36. Martin, Robert A., ed., pp.
In the Middle Ages, when The Canterbury Tales was written, society became captivated by love and the thought of courtly and debonair love was the governing part of all relationships and commanded how love should be conducted. These principles changed literature completely and created a new genre dedicated to brave, valorous knights embarking on noble quests with the intention of some reward, whether that be their life, lover, or any other want. The Canterbury Tales, written in the 14th century by Geoffrey Chaucer, accurately portrays and depicts this type of genre. Containing a collection of stories within the main novel, only one of those stories, entitled “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”, truly outlines the 14th century community beliefs on courtly love.
In the 14th century, war, and violence were prevalent. The Canterbury Tales were written during the Hundred Years War, when the Catholic Church was dealing with the Western schism, and “Against the darkest period of his life…” (Bloom 14). The story is centered on a group of thirty pilgrims who are traveling to the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury (Bloom 14). The pilgrims are all focused on a theme which is backed by the story’s underlying tone of religion.