As we all know, the ending of The Miller’s Tale left the reader on a cliff The carpenter foolishly breaks his arm, while Alison and Nicholas conceal their “dirty laundry” Since Chaucer made the general theme of this play with a funnier tone, Chaucer should have constructed a more funny ending

five husbands

A dishonest miller, who lives close to a college, steals corn and meal brought to his mill for grinding One day, the manciple (or steward) of the college is too ill to go to the mill to watch the miller grind his corn, and, in his absence, the miller robs him outrageously

Ironically, though, he’s also the one who suffers most in the course of the tale, being cheated on by his wife, tricked into spending the night cramped in tub hanging from the rafters of his house, taking a nasty tumble that likely breaks a few bones, and – as if all that weren’t enough – being humiliated in front of

churlish Miller

By Geoffrey Chaucer The woman is the “prize” to be won, which in “The Miller’s Tale” accords with a characterization of Alisoun that objectifies her

The narrator apologizes to us in advance for the tale’s bawdiness, and warns that those who are easily offended should skip to another tale

The morals in the Wife’s tale are usually said to be that (1) women desire dominance over men, or, to use the Old English word, women desire “sovereintee” over men and that (2) granting women dominance over men is in the best interest of men

Symkyn has married the illegitimate daughter of a local cleric, a woman who’s proud because of her expensive upbringing in a nunnery When the manciple of a school in Canterbury that regularly grinds its corn and wheat with Symkyn gets sick, the miller takes the opportunity to cheat the school even more than usual

“The Reeve’s Tale” is an attempt by the Reeve to “quite,” or answer, “The Miller’s Tale” The Reeve is angry because the Miller has just told a story in which a carpenter is humiliated by his wife and her lover The similarity between the two tales may be evidence of a source relationship between them

‘The Reeve’s Tale’ is a story about revenge or what is called quitting, meaning to repay someone The moral of this story is that you can’t hope for good if you do evil

Alysoun

Although Chaucer calls the woman the Wife of Bath, her husband’s name is not Bath; instead she lives in Bath She is actually a seamstress, well-known for her work and likely wealthy in her own right The Wife of Bath’s clothes provide evidence of this wealth

She does not see anything wrong with the fact that she has had five husbands, because she says that even God wants man to increase and multiply: “God bad is for to wexe and multiplye: that gentil text can I wel understonde” (Chaucer 117)

Although she is argumentative and enjoys talking, the Wife is intelligent in a commonsense, rather than intellectual, way Through her experiences with her husbands, she has learned how to provide for herself in a world where women had little independence or power

middle

Chaucer reveals that The Wife of Bath was a woman with experience not only with men, but with pilgrimages as well Chaucer implies that The Wife of Bath possibly might have been with so many men maybe for their money, “She’d have husbands, apart from others in youth” Showing that she had been with many men

The Wife of Bath is a woman of passion, who desires most of all to be more powerful than her man, her spouse, or her lover Chaucer uses irony and satire to challenge the church’s oppression of women by allowing the Wife of Bath to speak freely about sex, marriage and women’s desires

Of all the narrators in Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” the Wife of Bath is the one most commonly identified as feminist—though some analysts conclude instead that she is a depiction of negative images of women as judged by her time

In Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath and its prologue, the implied author clearly approves of the eponymous Wife of Bath

The Wife of Bath describes a violent relationship with her favorite husband, Jankyn He was the fifth man she married and the only one she really loved One night, after she ripped some pages out of his book and punched him in the face, Jankyn hit her so hard that the blow caused permanent deafness in one ear

He respects his craft, but Chaucer does not like his personality traits Chaucer thinks that the doctor is greedy and does not read the bible enough Overall, Chaucer feels neutral about the doctor

Friar is described from Chaucer as jolly and as a person who wants to lead a comfortable life Instead of ministering to lepers and beggars, as friars are supposed to do, the Friar cultivates relationships with rich men so that he can make a profit Friar supposed to be humble and modest, but he was not

A satirical device used here would be situational irony, this is because you would think a doctor would care about his patients, and would want his clients to get better All, he wants is the money This is an example of direct characterization as well because the doctor isn’t showing anything through his own speech