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Fate In The Knight's Tale

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From the beginning of time people have always been trying to change fate and get the outcome that they want to see and experience. This aspect of everyday human life is shown in The Knight 's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories. The stories all come together to create a frame story about a group of people taking a pilgrimage. During the pilgrimage they tell each other stories to pass their time. The Knight 's Tale is one of the tales. The tale is about a Duke named Theseus On his way home to Athens he finds some grieving widows. When he sees the women they tell him that Creon, the leader of Thebes, has killed their noble husbands and would not let them have a proper funeral. Theseus takes action and …show more content…

The knights are names Arcite and Palamon. He imprisons them for life instead of killing them. Arcite and Palamon spot Theseus’s sister in law, Emily, from their prison window and fight over her. They want her to the point that they even put themselves in danger. Arcite returns to Athens after being exiled and Palamon escapes from prison. The two cousins continue fighting till fate decides the outcome in the end. In The Knight 's Tale Chaucer uses conflict, foreshadowing, and tragedy to express that humans have the free will to do anything they want, but in the end fate still decides the ultimate outcome. Chaucer uses many examples of conflict in the Knight 's Tale to show that you can fight and argue as much as you want, but in the end fate will still decide who will get the victory. One example that Chaucer uses is “With Creon, who was Thebes dread lord and king, He fought and slew him manfully, like knight, In open war, and put his host to fight.”(pg 30). Chaucer uses these lines to express the conflict between Theseus and Creon. In this conflict, both of the opponents were nobles who wanted victory. Both of the nobles also believed in themselves and that they would win. Theseus and Creon fought till the end and

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