Essay on Variety in The Merchant's Tale

In the late 1300s Geoffrey Chaucer began wrote The Canterbury Tales, a story which follows the religious journey of twenty-nine people, who represent many aspects of Medieval society, to the Canterbury Cathedral in southeast England. While on the pilgrimage the host of the tavern, where all the pilgrims meet, suggests that the pilgrims each tell a story for the group’s entertainment. Chaucer intended for all the voyagers to tell two stories, but he unfortunately died before he could finish the book and only got to write one story apiece. However, the goal of the storytelling contest is to tell the most moral story possible, and the one who wins receives a free meal, which the rest of the pilgrims will pay for. Although some of the other stories have good moral messages, “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” are on different ends of the moral spectrum. “The Pardoner’s Tale” focuses on a pardoner who preaches against greed. While “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” exemplifies what all women want in their relationships: power. Although both “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” demonstrate the value of the opinion of elders, the stories differ in their moral values and their storyteller’s values.

The Shipman’s Tale, one of the many tales in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, is exactly suited to the Shipman’s personality and profession as given in “The Prologue.” The shipman is described by Chaucer in the prologue as very sneaky, deceitful, and even pirate-like. The Shipman’s tale matches his personality and profession because The Shipman’s Tale is one of trickery and con. The monk in the tale tricks both the merchant and the merchant’s wife out of their money. He also uses his relationship with the merchant to his advantage, because he knows the merchant would never suspect him of having sex with his wife. The shipman is also portrayed in the prologue to have no sense of remorse or feelings of sorrow.

“The life so short, the craft so long to learn” (Famous Quotes). The Canterbury Tales is enriched with humanistic merit that allows the reader to sharpen his or her own craft of life. Specifically, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” and “The Clerk’s Tale” are embodied with multiple struggles of life that pertain to life in the present. Despite seven centuries of society constantly evolving, the two stories’ plots can still be further analyzed through similar themes about relationships that pertain to modern society and how rhetorical strategy allows the audience to relate to the narrative characters.

Throughout the Canterbury Tales, various characters are introduced and tell a tale, each of which tells a different story. All of the tales are unique and address different issues. “The Miller’s Tale” is the second of the many stories and varies from all of the rest. As seen from the “General Prologue,” Chaucer clearly depicts the Miller as a crude, slobbish man who will say anything. This reputation is held true as the Miller drunkenly tells a story full of adultery and bickering. Despite the scandalous nature of “The Miller’s Tale,” the story also displays some of Chaucer’s prominent beliefs. As “The Miller’s Prologue” and “The Miller’s Tale” are told, it becomes evident that Chaucer is challenging the common roles and behaviors of women, and he is also questioning the effectiveness of social class.

     Soon, Janie's grandma married Janie to Logan Killicks. Despite Janie's disagreement, Janie's grandma had her way. Janie was off to Killicks' house under the assumption that love would come after marriage. 'So Janie waited a bloom time, and a green time and an orange time. But when the pollen again gilded the sun and sifted down the world she begun to stand the gate and expect things. What things? She didn't know.';(Hurston says, 23) Certainly, the marriage didn't go well, but to fully understand the meaning of the quote, it needs to be broken down to several parts: The bloom time meant the spring, which also served as the symbol as the beginning of the love. The green time meant the summer, which also served as the symbol of love during marriage. The orange time meant fall, which also served as the symbol of love at the end of marriage. In sum, Janie waited for love from Logan, and so she waited for the bloom time and the green time, but they never came. Janie then expected divorce but she did not know what to do, so she was confused.

The merchant claims that he knows nothing of long-suffering wives. Rather, if his wife were to marry the devil, she would overmatch even him. The Merchant claims that there is a great difference between Griselde's exceptional obedience and his wife's more common cruelty. The Merchant has been married two months and has loathed every minute of it. The Host asks the Merchant to tell a tale of his horrid wife.

During the hurricane Tea Cake asks Janie if she regrets leaving Eatonville to which she replies, “Naw, We been tuhgether round two years. If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don’t keer if you die at dusk. It’s so many people never seen de light at all.” At daybreak there is a horizon- this connects to the situation as Janie implies that she has seen and captured her horizon, she has obtained her dream. Dusk happens after sunset, it’s the coming of darkness. Janie does not care if she has to die in the terrible hurricane. Janie notes that there are people who never “seen the light”- meaning they’ve never seen or captured their own horizon and dreams. Just by being with Tea Cake Janie believes she has a part of her horizon. This is expressed as a point that Tea Cake is expressed as “the sun of the Evening Sun.” During sunset in the evening, the evening sun is part of the horizon. This symbolizes that Tea Cake is part of the dream of Janie in becoming free and being able to love. After trial, Janie thinks “The sun was almost down and Janie had seen the sun rise on her troubled love and then she had shot Tea Cake and had been in jail and had been tried for her life and now she was free. Nothing to do with the little that was left of the day but to visit the kind white friends who had realized her feelings and thank them. So the sun went down.” This quote represents more than that given day- it represents the life of Janie. In the end, Janie had gone through 2 marriages as the sun rose on her “troubled love”, Janie had to kill her lover and be tried in court. Now, the sun would go down and the horizon would arise. This shows how Janie had to go through all her struggles and sacrifices in order to reach her horizon. Now Janie is free- she is free from having to be in pursuit of her

When she was in doubt of marriage she said, "Did marriage compel love like the sun the day" (21).She uses this metaphor to explain her doubt towards her grandma and her advice to marry Logan without having any affinity towards him, implying she was going to love him someday. Janie compares her waiting for a good marriage to the waiting of a bloom, green, and orange time. Then, she finally concluded that she would always a have a bilious marriage with Logan (p.25). Janie compares her dreams and aspirations of love and marriage to kissing bees, to a tree in bloom, to glossy leaves, and to bursting buds. This passage in page 11 seems to be ineffable to Janie because all her feelings of joy are not expressed with accurate words but with elements of

from the barn rafters, and to cut the tub from the roof of the barn

There are three women in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the prioress, the wife of Bath and the prostitute in the Shipman’s Tale. The prioress and the wife of Bath are the only ones of the three that have a fully developed part of the overall work. They are equal to the male characterizations; the prostitute is only minor player. Women are rarely mentioned in the other pilgrim’s tales. The wife of Bath and the Prioress are examples of strong medieval women. As Chaucer depicts them, they are a departure from the typical sinful daughters of Eve with the exception of the prostitute. The wife Dame Alisoun, and the prioress are both pious, successful females but they are still under the domain of men. Chaucer’s women are still part of the patriarchal world of the late middle ages.

May deceives January quite wickedly in the garden. Yet for the reader we can not fault her for it. January has that garden for the purpose of licentious behavior. It is there so he can have May sexually in the way he wants her. She

In Geoffrey Chaucer's work, The Canterbury Tales, many travelers gather together to begin a pilgrimage. During their quest, each of the pilgrims proceed to tell a tale to entertain the group. From these stories arise four different tales, in which Chaucer uses to examine the concept of marriage and the problems that arise from this bonding of two people. In the tales of "The Franklin", "The Clerk", "The Wife of Bath", and "The Merchant", marriage is debated and examined from different perspectives. Out of the four tales, The Franklin's Tale presents the most reasonable solution to the marriage debate because the problems are resolved with the least amount of heartache.

In the prologue Chaucer explains how the Merchant “[stressed] the times when he had won, not lost” and how “high on a horse he sat”. Although the Merchant is described as a wealthy man with no troubles, Chaucer states ironically at the end of the paragraph that he was a “worthy man withal”. This leads one to assume the merchant is not totally well off and may have troubles with money. The Shipman is characterized as wise and an excellent sailor who knew the sea by heart and was excellent at his job.

The Canterbury Tales, the most famous and revolutionary work of Geoffrey Chaucer, is a collection of twenty-four tales presented in the form of a story-telling contest by pilgrims who are traveling from London to Canterbury. In my viewpoint, The Canterbury Tales can be understood as a representation of the English society at Chaucer's time as it documents several of the social tensions of life in the late Middle Age. The choice of setting the tales as part of a pilgrimage allowed the author to cover a wide range of social roles with varying hierarchical positions and occupations. Therefore, the tales depict a number of the evolving themes by that time in many segments of the society, such as the ones presented in The Wife of Bath tale: the

The play succeeds because of it’s raw realism. By making none of the characters admirable, it is actually a mirror of society itself. Usually people do have qualities that are not admirable and that it why the play succeeds, because it shows the true characteristics of humans in today’s society. It also shows human characteristics, of humans as a generalization. When evaluating the question of the plays merit, it can be tied back to the same idea. Therefore, the play succeeds in staying true to the nature of humankind itself and revealing the faults in society. The problematic and insignificant nature of society can be seen through the characters, particularly Portia, Shylock, Antonio and Bassanio. Each individual character has their own