The Prioress's Tale By Chaucer

The medieval narratives created about Jews and foreigners succeeded at exemplifying their otherness. Very distinct language was used to create a powerful binaries between the purity of Christianity and the danger of otherness. But narratives are only stories, stories only words, and words only…well words or are they? Can narratives transcend from only words and into actions? According to Miri Rubin “people act through narratives” and she implores us to “think of narrative as a mode of organizing events, unified by plot, which follows movement from problem to resolution, from violation of order to restoration” (Rubin, 2). The Jew and foreigner are depicted as the dangerous other in medieval literature which can be translated to real actions in expulsions, pogroms and crusades. This paper will examine the medieval narratives of Wonders of the East as well as The Prioress’ Tale and The Man of Laws Tale by Chaucer. These selections are just a small sample of medieval literature that depicts Jews and foreigners as ‘others’. These depictions made them into marginal filth that had to be expelled and cleansed to maintain order and power in the medieval Christian world. …show more content…
The Christian little schoolboy in The Prioress’ Tale is represented as pure, innocent and sweet while the Jews are associated with Satan, wickedness and filth. The boy is so pure that he cannot even be defiled after his body “in a wardrobe they hym threwe” (572). The boy’s purity is so powerful it transforms the filthy privy into a sacred shrine. Susan Morrison claims, “the sacred needs to control filth in order to exert power”. In this tale the Jews are put to death and their filth is controlled and clean Christian order is