Theme Of Humor In The Miller's Tale

The Canterbury tales is written by Geoffrey Chaucer takes place in the late 14 hundreds . Chaucer and 30 pilgrims are traveling to Canterbury, and to pass time each pilgrim tells a tale about their life. These tales are told through Chaucer's point of view, where he uses his humor to attract the reader in many different ways. Chaucer’s humor consist of three main attributes , sarcasm, sexism, and appearance.

Geoffrey Chaucer has greatly influenced English literature with many of his works. He comprised more than twenty tales in his most famous collections The Canterbury Tales. There are several of his many tales that expresses love, marriage, and romanticism to display an important message. The Merchants Tale in particular refers marriage and love between the characters. First, the story introduces the narrator Chaucer, whom tells the story of a knight. Second, the knight January is presented and is out looking for marriage, and gets it. Third, his wife May is introduced and unsuccessfully settles down with January. The main characters in The Merchants Tale each have their own attributions that are an important part of the tale expressing the

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Miller’s Tale” he uses symbolism as a literary element to create an underlying Christian theme that portrays the characters in the story as biblical figures. Each character of the story represents a different figure from the bible such as, Nicholas and Alisoun representing Adam and Eve, John the carpenter representing a Great Divine and Absolon representing The Devil. Throughout the story, there are many different aspects that highlight the Christian theme and allow the readers to truly see this interpretation.

This allows Geoffrey Chaucer to use the pilgrim’s tales as Estates Satire, to explore and criticize the nature and failings of the rigidly hierarchical society of the day. “The Miller’s Tale”, therefore, acts as a response and contrast to the aristocracy represented by “The Knight’s Tale”. The prologue largely serves to stress the low class and questionable character of the Miller. It’s the Monk’s turn to tell his story after the Knight, but the Miller barges in, insisting facetiously that he has a “noble tale” of his own. The Host argues that it is a better man’s turn, but the Miller threatens to leave if he doesn’t get his way, and is allowed to tell his story. He is proved to be a drunken churl, and as such will regale the audience with a “cherles tale” – as opposed to the Knight’s tale which was deemed worthy by the “gentil” members of the group. “The Miller’s Tale” is put in the context of the lower classes so that it is immediately relatable to those in the 3rd estate. A prime example is the lengthy effictio of Alisoun. She is likened to animals (a weasel, sheep, calf, colt), rural food (pears, ale, honey, mead, apples), and other commonplace objects (coal, hay, common wildflowers). This is a far cry from the otherworldly beauty and fairy women that star in most romances, and it makes Alisoun a more believable and accessible character for the audience. While romances conventionally deal with society’s elite in upper class surroundings, the Miller’s story is set in a provincial town populated by common, working-class people. The main characters are not knights and royalty, but laborers and clerks. And much in opposition to the honorable and chivalrous heroes of the Knight’s story and the like, the Miller’s heroes are conniving, foolish, and amoral. And the character in the poem representing the church,

The Canterbury Tales is a masterpiece written by Geoffrey Chaucer that introduce many characters in order to create an estates satire. Chaucer also writes about newer classes at the time and the corruption of the church. The Skipper is a pirate who steals and murders without a thought for law or conscience, but his deeds are not as bad as The Pardoner and The Summoner. The Pardoner and The Summoner are a duo of corrupt church officials with a considerable amount of power and skill in what they do. The Canterbury Tales’ Pardoner and Summoner are worse than The Skipper for their corruption, con-artistry, and the exploitation of people’s belief compared to the Skipper’s piracy.

In the selection passages, The Miller’s tale and The Reeve Tale both tell a story about tricking others in order to gain what they desire. Both of these tale are also similar because one tale is about gaining love and the other is about tricking others in order to gain money.

Chaucer describes Alison as a young, beautiful woman and compares her to numerous animals such as a weasel, a swallow, and a colt (Chaucer, 3234, 3258, 3263). Not only could her body be compared to that of a weasel, but so could her devious antics. However, Alison’s underhanded actions may have been devised in different ways. When astrology scholar Nicholas first approached Alison, she was hesitant to pursue him. Nicholas threatened that if she did not love him, he would die. Alison yelled for Nicholas to leave her alone; however, when he began to speak sweetly to her, “she hir love hym graunted atte laste,” which means, she granted herself to him at last (3290). Alison’s actions have ambiguous meaning behind them. Alison may have initially rejected Nicholas because she knew that her husband was a very jealous man (3294), and she was scared that he would find out about the affair. On the other hand, Alison could have also been “playing hard to get.” As an attractive, young woman at the time, she knew that she could receive almost anything she desired. Her initial rejection may have been a tactic of bribery to receive the affection that she craved. Either way, her original repudiation to Nicholas led to other ambiguous elements in the

Imagine living in the 1950s. Imagine being an American citizen who has been wrongly accused of Communism. Your life has just been ruined just like your reputation. You are not the only one though. Several American citizens experienced this. Playwright Arthur Miller saw this going on and wrote his famous award-winning play, “The Crucible”, analogizing the Salem Witch Trials and the Red Scare.

On the contrary, in The Miller’s Tale Absolon mockingly and pathetically attempts to follow all of the attributes in courtly love, and is not only humiliated but loses any love and desire felt towards his initial lover. “From time to time the male characters will be lured away from it [secular or religious values] by some temporary illusion of self-transcending purpose” . The irony here was that Absolon was a parish clerk and as a result, already doomed to failure as a romantic interest in terms of the rules of courtly love, as he is not described as a knight or chivalrous hero. His status and character was highlighted by his appearance: “crul was his heer, and as the gold shoon.” His hair glows like a halo and he believes himself to be holy,

The difference between the Miller’s and the Reeve’s tale is the Miller’s tale is a lot about humor and the Reeve’s tale is all about getting revenge the theme of both tales are incredibly different in my point of view. Once more the difference between these tales is different understanding of what is becoming next to the revenge and humor. The similarity with both these tales are they have an objective both their characters are faced with guilty or dishonestly. Again, the similarities are Chaucer is writing both these tales. The similarity between both these tales is the punishment of the miller and carpenter—humiliation by adultery, reeve and miller. There’s no really good reason of why the miller humiliated the carpenter but the reeve did

The first character to be introduced in Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Miller’s Tale,” John the Carpenter is arguably one of the more endearing characters in the story as he is one of the few who refrains from trying to trick or sleep with anyone else. Unfortunately, this amiability does not make him immune to the immorality of the other characters, and indeed, by the end of the tale, John suffers a fate undeserved by his actions; he is cuckolded by his wife, cheated by his friend, and publicly humiliated by the entire town. John is described by the narrator as having two major character traits, jealousy and stupidity, but only his stupidity is corroborated by actual action in the story. His alleged jealousy never appears. Through his

In “The Miller’s Tale” Chaucer explains how the Miller was a drunk and pale man that did not have a wife or children, but even before

Geoffrey Chaucer is one of the best writers of the earlier centuries and is right up there with Shakespeare, his Canterbury tales is one of his greatest works ever and the stories told in it are very innovative for his time. The one story I really enjoyed more was the wife of bath, the way she is a self-proclaimed authority of marriage since she has married more than once. She reminded me of the show “The real house wives of Orange County” and how the wife of bath has the same habits of marrying rich men but at the same time making claims about how marriage works. The real house wives are a modern counterpart to the wife of bath and I think if Chaucer was born in our own era he would have been very different and able to express some of his stories in a better or different way.

Due to women’s roles during this time it seems that the wife is seen as the lower of the relationship with her husband, John. John’s wife obviously has some kind of condition, and he sees that, but he makes it evident that he knows best through and through. The husband-wife relationship is deleterious and requires more effort to recovery than the wife’s illness. John is so many things; he is all the above. He is controlling, loving, overbearing, and condescending, amongst other things as well. John says things in such a subtle way that his condescending attitude is almost unnoticeable and mistaken as love. This is not to say that he doesn't love his wife, but his efforts are misleading.

The initial round of the story telling contest has finished! Since I am the judge of this contest, I feel that in this first round of tales it has come down to the Knight’s Tale and the Miller’s Tale. Both stories are concerned with love triangles, but the outcome of each story differs. In the Knight’s Tale, he tells of a man who struggles to choose between two beautiful women. The Miller’s Tale however is more unacceptable because it includes adultery. His tale is of a love triangle but in his story, the woman in married to one man, meeting with another man, and being adored by yet another man. Despite the Miller’s great describing of his tale, I have proclaimed that the Knight’s Tale wins this battle based on each tellers’ social status, the basis of each story and it’s entirety, and the lesson taught in each story.