Merchant's Tale Essay

The Merchant’s Tale Summary The merchant’s tale from The Canterbury Tales may be one of the more versatile tales, as the relationships the merchant holds is common throughout both life and in literature. The tale opens with a prologue, and the merchant’s open objection to marriage. He voiced his anger and said that all married men are morose, and complains about his wife’s qualities. He also said, “‘I have a wife, the worst possible; for though the devil were married to her she would outdo him

Use of Variety in The Merchant's Tale   The Merchant's Tale tells the story of an old man searching for a wife and finding one, who is ultimately unfaithful to him. Chaucer uses a variety of elements in the poem to show his knowledge of contemporary interests and his story telling capacity through another figure. Irony flows through the poem, laced with allusions to the Bible. Chaucer's use of his astronomical knowledge not only allows modern day scholars to date events, but also adds another

Merchants Tale and how Chaucer portrays Irony (1-27) As with a number of the Canterbury tales, the prologue to “The Merchant’s Tale,” is of significant to Chaucer’s ironic and sarcastic comments in the rest of the tale, it sets up the merchant’s views on women, and marriage in particular, as set out in the prologue which allow us to recognise the irony throughout his tale. This allows us to see the way in which the Merchant is telling his tale, for example ‘thilke blissful lyf’ might seem an innocent

In the Merchant's Tale of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, an older knight named January order’s to find a very young wife. January finds a beautiful young woman named May, who soon becomes his wife, despite her not being in love with him. May then falls in love with one of the knight’s squires, Damian. They send notes to each other and keep their love a secret as best as they can. Damian and May finally

Comparing Miller's Tale and Merchant's Tale 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

Women in the Merchant's Tale and the Manciple's Tale       The Wife of Bath's extraordinary prologue gives the reader a dose of what is sometimes missing in early male-written literature: glimpses of female subjectivity. Women in medieval literature are often silent and passive, to the extent that cuckolding is often seen as something one man (the adulterer) does to another (the husband). Eve Sedgwick argues in Between Men that in many literary representations, women are playing pieces

Vision, Truth, and Genre in the Merchant's Tale     In the Book of Genesis, Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which gives them greater powers of perception but also causes their expulsion from Paradise. The story creates a link between clear vision and the ability to perceive the truth‹which, in this case, causes mankind to fall from a state of blissful ignorance to one of miserable knowledge. In the Merchant's Tale, vision and truth do not enjoy such an easy

Analysis of The Merchant's Tale (The Canterbury Tales) Prologue to the Merchant's Tale: 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

In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses the obscene and the grotesque to illustrate to the readers the bawdy stories of the pilgrims on the journey and highlight their class differences. Although the members of the lower class use elements of the vulgar and grotesque, the erasure of some of the more obscene scenes by the storytellers indicates Chaucer’s humor to the audience as it is a rhetorical device. In “The Merchant’s Tale,” Chaucer gives the merchant, whose position is caught between the higher

Marriage as Portrayed in The Merchants Prologue and Tale   The story of Januarie's marriage to May and her subsequent infidelity with Damyan allows for not only Chaucer's view of marriage to come through, but also includes the opinions of contemporary writers. Chaucer allows his views to be made known as the narrator and his views could also be said to infiltrate the speeches of the Merchant. Justinus and Placebo's views are also accounted for as the fictional characters also air their opinions