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The Merchant S Tale

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THE CANTERBURY TALES
Geoffrey Chaucer
THE MERCHANT’S
TALE

Once there was, dwelling in Lombardy, a worthy knight, January, who had lived nobly for sixty years without a wife. January one day sent for all of his friends, telling them of his intent to marry, explaining that he was ill and old, and wanted a wife no older than twenty.

Placebo advice January that it would be excellent to marry a young wife, and telling him to do exactly as he pleased.
Justinus argued that he should be more careful and more thoughtful before taking a wife, warning that a young wife was like to cuckold an old husband.

“Straw for thy Senek!” January responds, agreeing with Placebo.
January selected one women and prepare for the wedding.

January marry May,…show more content…
Literary Devices
• Irony of the Merchant:
January pretends that he didn’t saw his wife and Damian having sex on the tree.

Literary Devices
• Verse Form
- It’s a long narrative poem. It’s written in verse, but the poem tells a story.
- the rhyming couplet, would be described as "aa, bb, cc, dd" because it rarely repeats a rhyme due to the pressures on the poet to keep the narrative moving.

Themes
• Anti-Feminism
He marry a young maiden because he wants to fulfil God’s wish which that man and woman marry and he wants a son to inherit his estates.
After only two months of marriage, his intolerable wife causes him constant agony — the Merchant has a cynical and bitter view of marriage. His wife described to have a babbling‚ shrewish tongue and many more vices. He bitterly regrets that he is tied to her for life but hopes no one will mention it because women have ways of finding out.

Of weeping and wailing, care and other sorrow
I know enough, at eventide and morrow,"
The merchant said, "and so do many more
Of married folk, I think, who this deplore,
For well I know that it is so with me.
I have a wife, the worst one that can be;
For though the foul Fiend to her wedded were,
She 'd overmatch him, this I dare to swear.
How could I tell you anything special
Of her great malice? She is shrew in all.
There is a long and a large difference
Between Griselda 's good and great patience
And my wife 's more than
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