Canterbury Tales by Chaucer - Book Report/Review Example

Chaucer’s Under men In creating his Canterbury Tales, Chaucer introduced several characters that represented the extremes of the society in which he lived. Through the course of the collection, Chaucer presents a series of short stories each told by a different character linked together by the simple frame of a journey to Canterbury. The characters present their stories as a means of entertainment during the long ride with the object being the one with the best tale wins a free dinner at the next hostel stop. The original plan was to have each character tell two stories on the way to Canterbury and two stories on the way back, but either Chaucer never finished the journey or the entire collection has never been found. What is unique about the tales is that each character has a different voice and a different perspective on life. As a result, many of these characters and stories represent the dominant ideals of the age because the characters tell stories that relate closely to their personalities and life station. In many cases, these stories can be juxtaposed against each other to show two different views of the same concept such as the issue of deceit. While deceit is the backbone of much medieval, and modern, humor, it can also be quite harmful with the only difference being in how it is practiced. An example of this kind of juxtaposition can be found when one works to compare the Miller’s prologue and tale with that of the Pardoner. The Miller tells a comic story of a man, his young wife and her exploits with the young men of the town while the Pardoner tells a story of three young men who set out to kill Death and are merely able to find him through their own greed and depravity. While people are hurt in the Miller’s tale, the story focuses more upon the comedy of the situation as opposed to the Pardoner’s tale, which is full of moral warning for the danger deceit brings to the soul. Comparing these two stories reveals a sort of mirror image between the Miller, an honest man who tells a story of comic deceit, and the Pardoner, a dishonest man who tell a story of deceit as damnation. The differences between these two characters are perhaps among the first things to stand out in such a comparison. The Miller is introduced as a drunken loudmouth who cannot be silenced once he decides to speak. The host has called up on the Monk to tell the next story, but it is the Miller who speaks up, first insisting he be allowed to tell his story, “Either I’ll speak, or go on my own way” (124), then refusing to alter the tale he’s about to tell based on the Reeve’s objections, “The Miller, to make the best of it I can, / Refused to hold his tongue for any man” (125). He is undeniably among the lowest of the classes and his spirit matches his standing, yet he is true to it in a way that many of the others are not. “The Miller is one of the most vivid characters that I have encountered in Chaucers work for he is perfectly delineated as the man he is, without including any unnecessary detail” (Khavis, 2001). While he seems to realize that his tale may not be appropriate for all of his fellow pilgrims, he cannot resist the urge to tell a story about a woman who fails to uphold the high standards of the woman in the Knight’s tale. Rather than completely apologizing for himself, he flatly tells his audience, “I am drunk, I know it by my sound, / If I can’t get my words out, put the blame on Southwark ale” (124). Just as the Miller refuses to take the blame for his story, so does Chaucer as narrator refuse to accept blame for the bawdiness of the tale the Miller is about to tell as it is simply the only means by which he can remain true to the nature of his characters. The Pardoner, on the other hand, seems to be caught in a rare moment of honesty when he begins his tale. The man introduces himself as a criminal and a con man. He tells his fellow travelers that one of his most common practices is to first display his many credentials, most of which are assumed to be false, and then produces his glass cases “Crammed to the top with rags and bones. They pass / For relics with all the people in the place” (318). As he describes these relics, he illustrates how he convinces the simple people that these relics contain holy ability to heal livestock among other things. “Though into a jealous madness a man fell, / Let him cook his soup in water from this well [in which a holy bone has been dipped] / He’ll never, though for truth he knew her sin, / Suspect his wife again” (319). He also indicates the means by which he avoids having anyone accuse him of wrongdoing by announcing that the relics won’t work for anyone who is guilty of some major sin. Thus, any man purchasing the relics doesn’t dare accuse the Pardoner of deceit for fear of being condemned by his neighbors. As if he hasn’t yet been clear enough in his confession, the Pardoner continues by telling his companions, “By such hornswoggling I’ve won, year by year, / A hundred marks since being a pardoner” (319). By the time he begins his tale, he has already revealed the avarice of his own soul and his willingness to cheat poor people of their hard-earned pennies. “The audience already knows that the Pardoner introduced himself as a con man, who makes his living selling phony relics, so it is in light of this that the reader can easily label The Pardoner as a hypocrite because he does not live up to the ethics he preaches. The hypocrisy of The Pardoner’s story further emphasizes the character of the story’s teller” (Kinnett, 2004). Thus, the Pardoner is revealed to be a swine of the lowest kind, naturally and deliberately working to harm his fellow man under the guise of a helper while the Miller is shown to be base and low, but having come by this station naturally and honestly. Perhaps this is the reason their tales of deceit are so dissimilar in intent and outcome. In contrast to his relatively straightforward introduction, the Miller’s tale contains a great deal of detail. The story includes an old carpenter named John, his young wife Alison, a student boarder by the name of Nicholas and a parish clerk called Absalom. The carpenter, perhaps justly so, is a suspicious man and jealously guards his young wife, but is still called away on business often, leaving her susceptible to the advances of the two young men. However, because Nicholas is closer, and perhaps for other reasons as well, the young lady is attracted to the student living under her own roof rather than the clerk at the local church. Nicholas devises a trick through which he will gain access to Alison for an entire night. He convinces the carpenter that God has warned of a second flood with a highly unbelievable story and arranges for the carpenter to sleep in a kneading trough tied to the rafters as a means of preserving his life. Although both Nicholas and Alison are also provided with troughs to sleep in, they both sneak out of them once the carpenter is asleep to spend the night together. The story becomes further complicated when Absalom stops by to steal a kiss from Alison and accidentally (on his part) kisses her bottom instead of her face. Angered by her deceit, he returns with a red hot branding iron and again requests a kiss, this time receiving Nicholas’ hind end thrust through the window. Nicholas, being burnt, screams for water, frightening John the carpenter out of his sleep and believes the flood has come. Cutting his trough free of the rafters, he comes crashing down to the ground, breaking his arm and becoming the joke of the town. Examining the two young men of the story, it can be seen that each is given a very full description of character. “Chaucer builds up a full character portrait of both Nicholas and Absolon in a very short amount of time, using a variety of literary techniques” (Howard, 2007). They are not simply two-dimensional space fillers but are instead complex beings. While the simple Miller’s tale is full of comic complexity, the complex Pardoner’s tale is full of simplicity. This tale tells the story of three young men who are out to avenge themselves on Death for having taken the life of one of their friends. An old man tells them how to find Death under the roots of a particular tree and the boys begin to dig. Instead of Death, they find a tremendous treasure and contrive how to sneak it back into town without anyone else knowing of it. Because they have some time to wait, the youngest of the men goes back in search of food and wine to bring back for them all to share. While he’s gone, the two who are left figure out how to keep the treasure to themselves by killing the youngest while the youngest similarly determines how he might keep the treasure for himself and poisons the wine. Predictably, when he returns, the other two kill him and then partake of the wine, thus killing themselves. All three men have now found Death as a result of their greed, which is the moral of the Pardoner’s story. “Although avarice is the focus, the Pardoner includes drunkenness, gluttony, swearing, gambling, and maybe other sins … The Pardoner has a detailed knowledge of low life … It’s a macabre and sterile tale and shows the Pardoner’s inability to love. (There are no women in the tale.)” (Delahoyde, 2004). In the spirit of telling what he knows, the Pardoner can talk about nothing but the sin of avarice but fills his story with more fancy words than actual substance. Despite these differences, though, there are some similarities between these two men and their stories. They are both of the lower class and represent the base level that society can sink to. While the Miller comes by this honestly, focusing upon the physical behaviors of his characters, the Pardoner is unable to see beyond his own greed and thus has become equated with depravity by the hole in his soul. They both seem to realize that they aren’t exactly welcome in polite society, the Miller insisting to speak while blaming his speech on the ale he’s imbibed and the Pardoner making a confession regarding the nature of his business before telling his story indicating he knows full well the ultimate results. In both cases, the men telling the stories are aware of their greatest vice and fully and freely confess it. In the same way, the two completely different stories told by the two men retain similar elements. The comedic story of the Miller seems to offer no true moral lesson as the young woman, Alison, receives no punishment for her actions as she should; however, there are several indications where morals can be learned. For instance, the Miller suggests that like should marry like – the old with the old and the young with the young to prevent the sort of mismatch that causes one party to seek happiness elsewhere. Another lesson is the need to examine personalities to a deeper depth than surface appearances as Nicholas seems to present two faces throughout the story – the poor, studious scholar and the hands-on lecher who pursues Alison. The Pardoner’s tale contains an unmistakable moral lesson, that of the destructive qualities of greed. However, his story loses much of its effectiveness because of who the teller is – obviously the Pardoner has not learned the lesson of the story making the story itself questionable. Thus, in both cases, while the stories told have at least one moral embedded within them, they are both caused to lose their effectiveness thanks to their mode of delivery. Through these characters and the stories that they tell, the modern world is able to gain a glimpse into what life was like in Medieval society, what was important to them and how people actually thought. The concept that these travelers are on a pilgrimage tends to suggest the reason the stories have moralistic overtones, but it is still understood that religion played a large role within society. The fact that the Pardoner can make a living at all off of the ‘relics’ that he sells despite his obvious failure to benefit from his own knowledge speaks eloquently of the people’s need for divine reassurance. Yet the ribaldry of the Miller’s tale illustrates that most of the people remained close to the earth and reinforces the idea that they were easily misled. As we read these stories, we unintentionally find ourselves comparing modern life with the lives depicted here, laughing at the simplicity of the carpenter and cynically nodding at the practices of the Pardoner. We recognize in these people some of the same exact behaviors and practices we see occurring around us today although some of the more minor details may have changed. As we realize who we are identifying with, the townspeople ridiculing the carpenter perhaps, we begin to understand a little more about ourselves and our own values. If, for instance, a reader finds himself agreeing with the Pardoner that he might as well make some good money off of the fools willing to buy his trinkets and then realizes the hypocrisy of their actions as opposed to their beliefs that they should be treated fairly, greater self-knowledge has been imparted. It is in this identification that the morals are finally delivered to the modern audience as we begin to realize how we are truly defined within ourselves as compared to those characters and we are either pleased or repulsed by the external perception we had of those characters prior to the inner identification. Works Cited Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Portable Chaucer. Theodore Morrison (Ed., Trans.). New York: Penguin Books, 1977. Delahoyde, Michael. “The Pardoner’s Tale.” (2004). Washington State University. October 26, 2007 Howard, S.J. “A Discussion of the Ways in Which Chaucer Builds up a Picture of Absolon and Nicholas.” Sensible Side. (2007). October 26, 2007 Khavis, Joshua A. “Meet the Miller.” The Canterbury Tales. (2003). October 26, 2007 Kinnett, Dylan. “The Deceived Deceiver: Chaucer’s Pardoner.” No Categories. (2006). October 26, 2007 Read More