The Merchant's Tale

Through the union of thirty-four pilgrims on their journey to Canterbury for absolution, Chaucer pens the tales and interactions of the pilgrims of various ranks and ecclesiastic affiliation. He negotiates a social hierarchy—different from that of the current governing structure—through his acute understanding of the behaviors, beliefs, and pretenses that cemented such order. Chaucer’s microcosm of caricaturized hierarchies criticizes the current social order defining the late-1300s, exposes the

The Thousand and One Nights, is a frame tale, where there are stories within stories, in which all the tales included have a connection. The overall frame of the tale is the transformation of a good king to a tyrant, which was caused the deception of his wife that invoked the King's anger by her infidelity. As the overall tale continues, stories come into perspective and back up the main topic of the story by using its own issues as examples. When reading the recurring theme in the overall frame

Often in literature there are common themes that occur throughout eras and genres to link two otherwise different pieces of writing. One particular example of this occurrance can be seen in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Although these works have been written in very different time periods and use separate styles, there are two themes which link both stories and convey a very similar message. Strict societal roles and the treatment of women

At the end of the 14th century, England’s first great poet, Geoffrey Chaucer assembled a collection of over twenty stories into the novel The Canterbury Tales. During the Hundred Years’ War, Chaucer composed these tales in Middle English. The Canterbury Tales is a collection of fictional stories presented by a group of English men and women as they travel along on a religious pilgrimage. The purpose of this trek was to seek the martyred saint’s blessings and to express thanks to the saint for helping

not comment too much on her work with the Church and with other people, he merely highlights the flaw of the prioress' vanity, a flaw that should not be present in a lady of the Church. This type of presentation if typical throughout the Canterbury Tales' general

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

The Arabian Nights is renowned for its multiple uses of enframed narratives. The layering of stories adds new meaning to the various tales of The Arabian Nights by bringing up new questions. In every story one reads, one finds themselves asking why Shahrazad would tell such a story, what kind of message is this tale giving Shahriar, and why bother telling another story within an already enframed story. However, The Arabian Nights is not alone in its use of the enframed story. Works inspired by The

Most modern fairytales are expected to have happy endings and be appropriate for children, nonetheless, in past centuries most were gruesome. Consequently, fairytales have been modified throughout time. The stories “Beauty and the Beast” by Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont and “The Summer and Winter Garden” by Jacob and Wilherm Grimm share similarities and differences. The two stories are distinct because of the peculiar year they have been written in. LePrince de Beaumont’s story is written in

The Wife of Bath's Tale (Middle English: the Tale of the Wyf of Bathe) is among the most-understood of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. It contribute insight into the role of females in the Late Middle Ages and was probably of interest to Chaucer himself, for the character is one of his most developed ones, with her Prologue twice as long as her Tale. He also goes so far as to describe two sets of clothing for her in his General Prologue. She holds her own among the bickering pilgrims, and evidence

To the Clerk's tale, Harry Bailly exclaims, "By Goddes bones,/ Me were levere than a barel ale/ My wyf at hoom had herd this legende ones!" (iv.1212 bd). There is also the Merchant's diatribe in his prologue, which follows all this, that he knows well about the woes of marriage after two months of it. This begins:   "Wepyng and waylyng, care