Imagery In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

Decent Essays
Passage three comes from the third tale told in the Canterbury Tales – the Reeve’s Tale – and focuses on the genre of the fabliau. This was the Canterbury Tales second tale written as a fabliau, the first being the Miller’s Tale. This passage portrays many different ideas and themes which are typical of this genre. The focus of this analysis will centre on the trickery the clerks perpetrate and the imagery Chaucer uses in order to portray the deception the clerks wish to accomplish.
A theme that is common in this passage and also in the fabliau genre is the theme of trickery. In order for the guilty or immoral characters to be punished in the eyes of the victims it is often necessary, at least from their perspective, to use tricks to deceive
…show more content…
Chaucer uses imagery to explore three different themes: romance, sex and violence, in order to create a complex plot arc. The use of romance and sexual imagery is often carried out together as if to invoke a direct contrast for the audience. Due to Chaucer’s readership being courtly lords and ladies it could be suggested he does this in order to introduce the fabliau in a milder way. In line 16, the no longer virtuous Malyne states ‘God thee save and kepe’ this being a blessing or prayer aimed at her lover Aleyn. This scene of parting lovers at dawn is a typical image seen in many romance tales. However, this is juxtaposed against a later point in the passage with Aleyn’s sexual, bordering on vulgar description to who he thinks is John, in line 35 – ‘swyved the milleres doghter bolt upright’. This line is filled with euphemistic imagery, ‘swyved’ meaning screwed, a slang term for sexual intercourse and ‘bolt upright’ creating the image of an erection both create a disrespectful and bawdy atmosphere surrounding the night’s events. Chaucer may have created this atmosphere in order to show a direct contrast between the traditional love story and the genre of the fabliau. Further, the use of the sexual imagery against that of romantic setting may be carried out in order to show the frivolous nature of women’s romantic ideals as it is Malyne who is being romantic and Aleyn who is being vulgar, yet more earthly in his …show more content…
In order to show that ‘both Symkyn and the students have had a mutual use of each other’s ‘flour’ before its return in the end, kneaded and transformed to its original owner’ (that being that both have used something of the other’s possession in order to gain an equal footing), the ending of this passage needs to have a violent end in order to fit with the classic fabliau context. This passage is no exception to these conventions as seen in line 44: ‘and on the nose he smoot hym with his fest’ suggesting that Symkyn gains some control back from the clerks in the finale as he starts the violent outburst, of course, as common of the fabliau this is not how the fighting continues as the clerks gain power once more. In adding violence into the final part of this tale it shows Chaucer’s primary readers that lower class members of society do act in the way they perhaps believe, as this tale comes from a reeve and is centred around a miller. Chaucer may have done this in order to show the audience members that the lower classes are of a lesser standard to them as noble

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    This is a symbolic reference to love and how one is entranced by a lover’s attraction. Keats’ describes the fantasy of love as “I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too.” Flowers are commonly associated with love and life and this is an innocent symbol of the knight’s love for the femme fetale. Keats’ contrasts this innocence with the reality of love “I see a lily on thy brow”. Lilies are associated with death so these flowers symbolize the death of the knight’s hope in getting the love of the lady.…

    • 1048 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Tales such as the Miller’s and Reeve’s tale depict to us not only a sense of humor, but additionally portrays a sense of what medieval society was like during Chaucer’s time as an author. Mainly the way shows the livelihood and depicts the social status of characters, not only in the humorous tales but also in the more somber ones. Humor is Chaucer’s discreet way of showing the environment in medieval society. To begin with, to what extent does the humor in the Canterbury Tales show us about the medieval? In the Canterbury Tales, in my opinion there are three main cases where the humor is shown.…

    • 1619 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    On the basis of entertainment and lesson-teaching, it is not difficult to see which tale in The Canterbury Tales is the best. Each pilgrim journeying to Canterbury tells their own story with a lesson and a bit of entertainment, and their stories reflect their actions and personalities. “The Pardoner’s Tale,” “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” and “The Miller’s Tale” represent their storytellers while capturing the attention of the reader. However, only one of the tales has the strongest lesson and the most balanced amount of entertainment. “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” rises above the other stories in terms of lesson-teaching and entertainment because it demonstrates a revolutionary lesson while resisting the urge of being too obscene or too hypocritical like the other two tales.…

    • 762 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Helen Rocha Per.2 SAHC:HR By looking at the Knight's and Miller's Tale in Geoffrey Chaucer's work of fiction Canterbury Tales 1476, one can see the distinctions between love and lust, and the tragic and comic endings desire, temptation, and ones emotional necessities may lead the human mind to. The Knight who portrays humorous aristocracy among pilgrims, introduces a courtly love tale that represents his social class. The Miller on the contrary represents the middle class in Medieval England, and coveys a fabliau tale, completely distinct from the Knight's tale. Both tales introduce the conventions of romance, and upshot of desire. While one tale engages on a spiritual meaningful convention of love, the other engages in sexual drive and the humiliation lechery may bring to ones table for the rest of their living.…

    • 1073 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout the journey to Canterbury, two tales were read. Each held very few similarities to the other, but each possessed quite a few differences. These two tales were expressed by men from two incomparably different walks of life. One was a well-born knight who found victory in battle, placed others before him, and took great pride in his two most extraordinary horses. The other story teller was a pardoner, who did not believe most of his own teachings, hornswoggled people for their money, and knew just how many non-vernacular Latin words he had to use to assure the common people of his sincerity.…

    • 1007 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Women are viewed in a variety of ways, depending on culture and opinion. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales walks us through various tales of men and their interactions with women. Chaucer also includes the tales of the Prioress, the two nuns and the Wife of Baths. From a close reading of the text, it could be assumed that women were associated with little to no value. They were used primarily for sexual reasons and weren’t considered sacred.…

    • 903 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Merchant’s Tale follows a genre of the narrative common to the medieval French literature known as a “fabliau.” According to Christina von Nolcken “these types of stories are often short, comic, and involve a person stealing another person’s wife.” The key plot of The Merchant’s Tale fits this, especially with the stock features of the lustful old man cuckolded by a young woman. Von Nolcken continues, “part of the comedy of a fabliau of this kind is the folly of the old man who thinks he can sexually please his young, good-looking wife, and have her truthful to him”. The tale focuses on January as he appears the victim of the unfaithful wife, but his inappropriate lust and foolishness would have caused no sympathy from Chaucer's medieval audience.…

    • 997 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Geoffrey Chaucer, during his time and even today, is considered one of the greatest English poets of the Middle Ages. Through his diverse characters and confounding morals, he is able to capture and relate to a broad audience. One of his more memorable characters is The Pardoner. The Pardoner is an interesting character as he seems to meet the exact opposite of what is expected of him, purposely by Chaucer, to voice a statement. The Pardoner’s introduction and tale encompasses several themes, being it betrayal, hypocrisy, and contradiction in general, all relating back to the deeper meaning and criticism Chaucer makes about humanity.…

    • 730 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Animals often play significant roles in literature despite their appearance of being in trivial positions; the employment of animals is seen throughout many of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The Summoner and the Pardoner’s tales evoke numerous animals such as cats and horses that either play large roles (for example, describing the Pardoner’s physical appearance) or small ones (the Summoner’s act of moving a cat). Despite their superficial insignificance, the animals are deliberately included by Chaucer to interact with his pilgrims or to describe their character: this essay will argue that the animals in the Pardoner’s tale are used to describe the pilgrim’s physical and sexual identity whilst the animals referenced in the Summoner’s…

    • 1884 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Chaucer uses the men’s deception to illustrate their selfishness. The three rioters were looking for death and when directed to where they could find it they found money instead. At this point they became very ecstatic and immediately started configuring a plan to avoid splitting the money. Their greed came into play while one rioter was in town because the other two conspired a plan to…

    • 796 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Mae Corrigan Mrs. Jacomme Honors British Literature Period 8 23 November 2015 “Payback Appearing in The Canterbury Tales” The reoccurring theme of payback is forever present throughout literature. In The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, there are multiple examples of vengeance and retaliation. Chaucer creates a frame story as twenty-nine pilgrims start their journey to the shrine of Saint Thomas á Becket at Canterbury Cathedral.…

    • 1972 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Miller’s Tale” by Chaucer, centres around one female and three men. Chaucer skilfully uses the limited number of characters to represent more than just two simple genders. By linking to feminist literature, critics spot a clear pattern within these texts of a woman’s struggle for equality and acceptance as a human being, before becoming a victim of gender stereotypes , similarly to Alisoun. However, in contrast, we can debate that the male characters within this prose experience gender stereotypes also.…

    • 1360 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Canterbury's speech is intriguing in light of the fact that the Archbishop uses such striking imagery to prove the subservient relationship between the subjects and their ruler. Here, he makes an analogy between society and a settlement of honeybees. Like humans, honeybees have a ruler (in the Renaissance individuals thought that queen bees were male) and the rest of the hive works towards a common goal. As such, Canterbury is saying that the division of individuals into different classes is as natural as a hive of bees cooperating in…

    • 90 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Pardoner's Miracle Cures

    • 1287 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Through the Pardoner’s actions, Chaucer criticizes the language the Pardoner uses in order to attain more customers and the contradiction between the ideal and the real motivation that the Pardoner has towards the customer and the customer has towards the…

    • 1287 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Before Martin Luther posted his 95th thesis on a church door in Worms, Germany so as to publicly air his grievances against the Church, another prominent figure also criticized the abuses of the Church. This man was no clergyman or ruler; he was a prominent literary figure of his time. This man was Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, in part, deals greatly with the abuses and scandalous behaviors of authority figures in the Catholic Church. Before Luther and before changes were made, Chaucer’s novel sheds light on some of the more questionable behaviors of those in the Catholic Church.…

    • 1437 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays