Comical Events in The Canterbury Tales Essay

13 December 2012

Comical Events in The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of unfinished works written by Geoffrey Chaucer towards the end of the fourteenth century. Chaucer is well known for using satire by using the pilgrimage as a framing device for a number of stories. The writer gives a short description of each character in the Prologue. The Reeves Tale and The Millers Tale both contain forms of fabliaux and have been analyzed because of their comical timing, plot intricacy, and the cast of characters, as well as their similarities and differences.

Fabliaux were a term used to distinguish species of old French narratives. The first fabliau was defined by Joseph Bdoer as "a metrical tale to make [people] laugh." (Strayer 574) In the fabliaux the attitude is always a mocking one, not frequently the length of the entire tale. One of the most common aspects of fabliaux is the weakening of the feminine sex in just about every tale (Bloom 23).

The Miller was a very short man with a wart on his nose and a large mouth. He is arrogant and likes to cause problems. The Millers tale begins when the host asks the Monk to tell the next tale in the series. The Monk begins his tale the drunk Miller, who tells a tale of an underprivileged student Nicolas. He takes advantage of his incompetent landlords wife who is a carpenter, interrupts him. Alisoun and Nicolas devise a plan to fool John the landlord so that they may sleep together one night. Their plan was to tell John that the second flood was coming; they tricked him into spending the night in a bathtub hanging from the roof of the barn. The fabliau in this tale really takes its shape once a young clerk enters the scene.

The young clerk named Absolon appears at the window where Alisoun and Nicolas were just making love. Madly in love with her he asks for a kiss, she sticks her rear end out in the darkness he does not notice and kisses it. Furious at what she has done he runs and gets a branding tool to get back at her. He later returns to the window and asks for another kiss this time around Nicholas sticks his rear end out and is branded by the tool. Struck with so much pain he screams for water waking up the carpenter. Inclosing the tale the carpenter creaks the rope on the tub, falls down and breaks his arm.

The fabliau events in this tale are best described as a love triangle (Howard 80). The Miller in this tale is described as an incompetent human being. An employee and his mistress manipulate him, there by implying the sex and body implements of the fabliau. The characters are fully empowered to manipulate private space to their own advantage.

The Reeves Tale is only a continuation that of the Millers Tale. The Reeve was once a carpenter himself and does not favor the demeaning story that the Miller has just told. He continues to tell a story about the stupidity of a Miller and how he lost his vision. He continues on to say that the Miller was very proud of his hunting skills, and his crafty stealing techniques. The Miller never let slip away the opportunity to steal from someone. Not only a horrible person, but the Miller was also a horrible husband who only married his wife to advocate his social status in the community. The Miller made most of his money because he was a monopoly in the local community; he was the only one able to grind the corn that he sold to the college.

This tale takes place once the Reeve becomes offended by the Millers Tale. The clerks try to fool the Miller when in the same respect the Miller is stealing their corn. At the very end of the Tale the two clerks enjoy a nice night with both the Millers wife and daughter, once again demeaning woman in the Middle Ages (Chaucer 129).

Comparing the Millers Tale and the Reeves Tale you will notice that the Millers Tale is far more comical where the Reeves may be considered disturbing. The Reeves Tale is a great example of karma, because the Miller who took advantage and stole from people in the end had nothing and both his wife swived, and his daughter als (Chaucer 201). The Millers Tale was more an example of adultery because bother parties were aware of what they were doing. In the Millers Tale this grotesque man who has chosen to marry a beautiful eighteen years old. Their relationship was set to fail as stated in the Tale itself After his freendes fyndyng and his rente. This carpenter hadde wedded newe a wyf, Which that he lovede moore than his lyf; Of eighteteene yeer she was of age. Jalous he was, and heeld hire narwe in cage, (Chaucer in the Twenty-First Century). This stated that the carpenter John kept his wife in a cage, simply because she was wild and young.

Works Cited

Saintsbury, George. A Short History of French Literature. Second Edition. Orford At The Clarendon Press, 1884. Print.

"eChaucer." Chaucer in the Twenty-First Century. University of Maine at Machias, 03/31/2011. Web. 1 Jan 2012. .

Bloom, Harold. Modern Critical Interpretations Geoffrey Chaucer's The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1988. Print.

Bisson, Lillian. Chaucer and the Late Medieval World. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998. Print.