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Horatian Satire In The Canterbury Tales Essay

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The Problem with the Institution of Marriage
According to the Bible, marriage began with God. As creator of marriage, God said, “Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4). This quote explains that husband and wife should be faithful to one another as well as to honor each other in marriage. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses the horatian satire to depict the institution of marriage. Satire is something that is very common in novels and poems today. It is used to make light of serious situations, as well as point out problems with people or society. Chaucer uses this satire to not only make the reading more intriguing, but also to point out the problems with everyday life during the Middle Ages. The Knight in the Wife of Bath, and the Miller, are some of the characters Chaucer uses to enforce the idea of marriage while using horatian satire. In the poem of the Wife of Bath Tales, Chaucer tells about the knight. In …show more content…

Like the Wife of Bath, the Miller also agrees with the Wife of Bath 's belief of the wife being able to marry more than once. The Miller 's tale includes a lustful clerk, a conceited clerk, and an old man entangled in a web of deceit and adultery construed by a married women. Chaucer uses juxtaposition in the Miller 's Tale. The juxtaposition definition is to place two concepts, characters, ideas, or places near or next to each other so that the reader will compare and contrast them. This technique also may imply a link that is not necessarily real or to be trusted. The Millers Tale shows Alison 's blatant disrespect for her marriage to "Old John" and her planned deceit. Chaucer shows how one in marriage can be faithful in a realationship, but the other only in for deceit. Stories like the Millers tale are still popular in todays society, those which claim that jealousy and infidelity arise from marriages between old men and beautiful young

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