The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is a collection of 24 stories written during the Middle Ages. The tales were written with the intent of criticizing the functions of societal standards as well as the beliefs of the Church. “The Miller’s Tale,” one the most popular stories, offers unique insights into the customs and practices of the English middle class during the Middle Ages. The story follows the lives of John, Absolon, and Nicholas, three men who are involved with a beautiful woman named Alisoun. The male characters attempt to win over the heart of the beautiful Alisoun, leading to misfortune and despair. However, this misfortune is not distributed evenly, and the characters, with the purest of intents, end the story far worse off than their immoral counterparts. In “The Miller’s Tale,” Chaucer shows that life favors the characters with an inverted moral compass while ultimately destroying those who are more honorable. The parish clerk, Absolon, was depicted as a noble man who was mocked for his courtly nature. In the beginning of the tale, Absolon attempted to win the heart of the beautiful Alisoun with sauve gestures. To woo her, “he sent her sweetened wine, mead, and spiced ale, and wafers piping hot out of the fire... and because she was a townie, he offered money” (3376-3380). His attempt at flattery and courting Alisoun involved patience and offerings of nothing but kindness, music, and riches. Unfortunately, “he had for his labor nothing to scorn. And
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.
“The Miller’s Tale” is a Fabliau. Chaucer illustrates how a fabliau can be a parody of romance. This kind of medieval literature usually involves someone getting cheated on. Sex in association with women is a major component in Chaucer’s Humorous tale. “The Miller’s Tale” main character Alisoun is the divine, she is the center of courtly love. Joseph D. Parry analyzes “The Miller’s tale” in his article “Interpreting female agency and responsibility in the Miller's Tale and the Merchant's Tale”. Parry’s explications of Alisoun being solely responsible for John, Nicholas and Absolom’s misfortunes are solid but not completely accurate.
In “The Miller’s Tale”, the poet Chaucer depicts the tale of a “hende” man and his attempt to tempt the “primerole” Alisoun to commit adultery and therefore render her husband, John a “cokewold”. The Miller’s Tale is just one story amongst a collection of greater works known collectively as “The Canterbury Tales”. The placing of this tale is significant becomes it comes directly after the Knight’s Tale revolving around nobility and chivalry and forms a direct contrast due to the fact it is bawdy, lewd and highly inappropriate. The tale is a fabliau, a versified short story designed to make you laugh; concerned usually with sexual or excretory functions. The plot often involves members of the clergy, and is usually in the form of a
In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales a storytelling competition is proposed by the Host. In his mind, it was only proper for the Knight to tell his story first. The sneaky Host rigged the drawing of straws and the Knight won the honor of going first. He told a Roman Epic of loyalty and love, set in classical antiquity that portrayed his gallant manner and elevated social class. The Miller's Tale, a parody of the Knight's Tale, came next. The Miller's Tale was more contemporary and left out many of the ideals that were displayed by the characters in the Knight's Tale. This fabliau told by the Miller seemed to debase the Knight's Tale and also to debase the Knight himself.
In Chaucer's, The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses many aspects of one tale and incorporates it into another using many reoccurring themes. Many characters go through similar circumstances as Chaucer uses these themes to help each tale parallel another. For example, the Wife of Bath's Tale and The Nun's Priests Tale, uses the theme of textual evidence as a basis of reasoning of men to overpower women. The two tales that parallel each other the most are The Miller's Tale and The Summoner's Tale. Nicholas and Absolon of the Miller's Tale act immoral in many ways which the Friar in the Summoner's tale seems to exhibit. Chaucer uses the characteristics and actions of the characters in the Miller's Tale to create a character that embodies many aspects
Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is a fictional book about people who are going to Canterbury to receive the blessings of St. Thomas Becket. The Host suggests that to make a journey pleasant, every member has to tell a story and the person who tells the best story will get free dinner paid by the other members. The Host decides to accompany other members to Canterbury and serves as the judge of the Tale. A relationship is usually seen between a teller of a tale and the tale that he or she decides to share. The Pardoner, The Merchant, and the Wife of Bath use their feelings and experience to teach the lessons in the tale. Merchant has poor and second-rate views on marriage whereas Pardoner commits lot of sins and frauds and Wife of Bath wants womens to have control over their life.
“The Miller’s Tale” is a Fabliau. Chaucer illustrates how a fabliau can be a parody of romance. This kind of medieval literature usually involves someone getting cheated on. Sex in association with women is a major component in Chaucer’s Humorous tale. “The Miller’s Tale” main character Alisoun is the divine, she is the center of courtly love. Joseph D. Parry Analyzes “The Miller’s tale” in his article “Interpreting female agency and responsibility in the Miller's Tale and the Merchant's Tale”. Parry’s explications of Alisoun being solely responsible for John, Nicholas and Absolon’s misfortunes are solid but not completely accurate.
The Canterbury Tales” is a collection of twenty four original stories written by the one and only Geoffrey Chaucer published in seventeen forty eight. Mr. Chaucer’s frame story consists of thirty people who travel as pilgrims to England, also known as the wonderful Canterbury. As you can imagine, the journey to Canterbury is lengthy. The characters decide to kill time by unfolding tales stringing from different layers of society. Within every story holds its’ own wistful meaning. There are lessons embedded in every two stories to and from Canterbury. Especially “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” and “The Pardoner’s Tale”. Told by an evil preacher and a very lustful, beyond used up wife. Now usually preachers have a great reputation. Thought to be all
Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales was originally a frame story including thirty people, later to become thirty-one. Does filthy reading make a great tale? A morally sound story is one that is clean, has an easily discovered moral and a moral that teaches a good lesson. The Miller’s Tale is quite a tale to tell, this tale does lack of being morally sound, it is entertaining and it fits The Host’s personality.
“The Miller’s Tale,” part of Geoffrey Chaucer’s larger work, “The Canterbury Tales,” is a bawdy and irreverent story about lust, deception, and consequences. Chaucer’s work centers around four main characters: John is a dimwitted carpenter, Alison is John’s young and wife, Nicholas is a scholar who resides in John’s household, and Absolon is a priest’s assistant with a romantic fixation on Alison. Throughout the tale, deceptive plots and questionable decisions abound, and no one is completely innocent of wrongdoing. Of course, like with most any other story involving lies and selfish pursuits, every character gets an informal education on natural consequences. It is worth noting that Nicholas is the only character in the story with any
In The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer, each character, such as the Pardoner, Wife of Bath, and the Franklin, epitomizes their spirit and reputation through the tales they tell. The Pardoner uses his tale as a gimmick to make money, because he is a greedy man. The way his tale illustrates each sin, every listener can relate to the three brothers and feel their guilt. The Wife of Bath’s Tale expresses her own values in the way the Knight is given a second chance after raping the young virgin. This greatly undermines her idea of the value of women. Because the Wife of Bath is so sexual, and lacks respect for her self, the Knight’s actions and forgiveness represent her own attitude on men versus women. Lastly, The
The Canterbury Tales is a piece of writing containing 24 tales covering around 18,000 lines done by Geoffrey Chaucer. Some of the stories that are part of The Canterbury Tales include the Miller’s Tale and the Knight’s Tale. Considering the two stories, we can see the similarity in the plot that lets them be compared. Additionally, the differences in imagery and the choice of words make the two tales stand out even though they are also different in a way. In both tales, the characters resemble one another in several ways. In the Miller’s Tale, the characters were made out to be crude and naïve while the characters in the Knight’s Tale were proper and elegant within their actions and speech. Although the two stories have outstanding imagery,
The Canterbury Tales is a story that incorporates a multitude of stories told by a multitude of characters. Written by Geoffrey Chaucer, he devises a novel in which each character has to narrate a total of four stories as part of a competition; on their way to visit Saint Thomas Becket, the characters would tell two stories going and two stories returning from the journey. The perspective changes through each story, and each story is introduced by a general, opening, third person prologue. Though many of the characters got to share some ideas, Chaucer unfortunately passed away before his story’s entirety. As a result, a winner was never officially clarified. Needless to say, it is evident that the clear winner would be the Miller’s Tale.
Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales in the late 1400s. By conceiving the idea of a pilgrimage to Canterbury in which each character strives to tell the best story, Chaucer cleverly reveals a particular social condition of England during the time. In this time period, the status, role, and attitudes towards women was clearly different from that of today. Two tales in Chaucer's collection specifically address this subject: the Miller's tale and the Reeve's tale. The interplay between the tales and characters further enhances the similar viewpoints these stories have towards women.
The Miller’s Tale is given to the reader of The Canterbury Tales as a stark contrast to the knight's tale which is a courtly romance and which came immediately before this one. The host is in search of another noble tale but while searching the miller interjects his tale. The Importance of this that it puts the miller's tale in direct contrast with the knight's tale. By doing this Chaucer is saying to the reader that all that nobility and proprietary seen in the prior tale will not exist in this one, for such traits are not part of the world of peasants. This is furthered by the fact that when we are introduced to the miller, he is drunk and in a disgraceful state.