Geoffrey Chaucer's The Shipman's Tale

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.

Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales are some of the most widely read and anthologized pieces of medieval poetry. These tales are generally celebrated and enjoyed because of the author’s use of wit and satire, as Chaucer often uses word play and characterization to deliver hard-hitting, yet entertaining truths about his time period. This is the case in “The Miller’s Tale,” which portrays the story of a carpenter with an adulterous wife and the shenanigans that take place during and after one of her affairs. After closely examining “Absalom’s Revenge,” the last section of this tale, it is clear to see that Chaucer uses language, puns, and other writing techniques to provide a commentary on the lewdness of some who lived during the Middle Ages.

While on the way to venerate Saint Thomas Becket’s remains, the entertainment of Chaucer’s Canterbury pilgrims falls upon the requiting of stories between the different estates. However, this requiting quickly turns malicious, the Host’s simple proposition evolving into an aggressive show of social dominance that includes the boasting of both literal and metaphorical rape. The normalization (or, borderline reverence) of aggressive manliness contributes to the creation of both rape culture and compulsory heterosexuality. Consequently, when a man does not dominate a woman—or, does not use his masculinity to humiliate another man—he is seen as weak or effeminate, subsequently placing his sexuality under scrutiny. Such is the motive behind John and Aleyn’s rape of the miller’s wife and daughter—to make Symkin seem weak, and to gain a reputation of superior masculinity. Thus,

Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales became one of the first ever works that began to approach the standards of modern literature. It was probably one of the first books to offer the readers entertainment, and not just another set of boring morals. However, the morals, cleverly disguised, are present in almost every story. Besides, the book offers the descriptions of the most common aspects of the human nature. The books points out both the good and the bad qualities of the people, however, the most obvious descriptions are those of the sinful flaws of humans, such as greed and lust.

Within the tale that the Wife of Bath creates, Chaucer’s opinions shine through in the dialogue of the women. In a time period where women

Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” is an important part of his most famed work, The Canterbury Tales. One of the most respected highly analyzed of all of the tales, this particular one is important both for its character development and its prevailing themes. It seamlessly integrates ideas on society at that time with strong literary development. This work stands the test of time both because of its literary qualities and because of what it can teach us about the role of women in late Medieval society.

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem The Canterbury Tales a young Chaucer tells of the people he meets on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Thomas Beckett in Canterbury. One of the most vivacious characters on the pilgrimage is The Wife of Bath. Both the Wife of Bath’s prologue and tale share a common theme of a woman’s control in a relationship with a man. The Wife of Bath and the old hag in her tale share a similar perspective on what women want most in life. In the prologue and tale the reader is exposed to the idea that what women most desire in life is to have control over their husbands and lovers. This tale and its prologue are linked through the way that Dame Alice, the Wife of Bath, fashions the old hag in her tale after herself.

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.

In Chaucer’s “Franklin Tale” the plot revolves around a married couple: the knight, Arviragus, his young wife, Dorigen, and a young squire, Aurelius who importunes and attempts to Dorigen. The characters can be said to oscillate between desire and their ego honor which affects what they say and do. Lacan’s definition of desire tells us that we desire for recognition from this “Other.” Our desire is to become what the other person lacks. Duby’s model of courtly love is a concept that focuses on chivalry, nobility and women being at the center. In this paper, I will examine what the story reveals about the relation each character has to his or her desire, how they act in accordance to their desire and the role magic or illusion plays in the plot and how it affect characters’ relation to desire.

There is no question that contradictory values make up a major component of The Canterbury Tales. Fate vs. Fortuna, knowledge vs. experience and love vs. hate all embody Chaucer's famous work. These contrasting themes are an integral part of the complexity and sophistication of the book, as they provide for an ironic dichotomy to the creative plot development and undermine the superficial assumptions that might be made. The combination of completely contradictory motifs leads to the unusual stories and outcomes that come to play out in the tales. And these outcomes draw focus on the larger universal issues that in many cases transcend the boundaries of vernacular periods to all of

Both, The Jew of Malta and “The Shipman’s Tale” by Christopher Marlowe and Geoffrey Chaucer, presents women as accessory characters who are at the disposal of the male protagonist. To a medieval reader, the restrictions women experienced when it came to participating in political, economical, and social affairs may have been normal, yet to a contemporary reader, their treatment and participation in literature is essential to understanding the limited role of women as social agents. Moreover, it is important to closely analyze unanswered questions about their obedience or defiance. On the other hand, the representation of women in both the works of Marlowe and Chaucer has been recognized by scholars as positive.

Chaucer’s “Wife of Bath Prologue and Tale” focus on the story telling of a woman who has experienced her fair share of marital issues. She is depicted as a promiscuous woman, married five times and had plenty of male suitors, the Wife was not like any other woman during this era. Although her reputation was how most perceived her, she was not a fan of being scrutinized for what she considered as her duty as a woman; to not remain single. This is seen through the depiction of women in society, how marriage ought to be in the eyes of religion, and how men were to view a woman like her. The language that is used throughout Chaucer’s prologue and tale allude to the evolution of women as well as how they struggled to gain any recognition in

Chaucer, in “The Franklin’s Tale”, takes Boccaccio's older Italian tale Filocolo and changes three distinct characteristics that transforms the tale into a more modern approach when dealing with courtly love. Chaucer takes the traditional concepts of gender equality, social class, and infidelity and changes them slightly in order to convey how lust can affect one's need for dominance, and make an individual participate in abnormal behavior, such as uncontrollable lust, guilt, and pride. The concept of gender equality is discussed frequently throughout “The Franklin’s Tale”. Chaucer takes Boccaccio’s original pattern of having two knights fight over one lower class woman and scrambles it by having a lowly squire chase after a higher class maiden who is already married to an absent husband. This change helps to increase the intensity of the tale by having the women in the traditional place of dominance over the men.