Laughter In The Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales reflect the various ways of navigating and perceiving society in the British Middle Ages. One of the great merits of this collection is Chaucer’s intent to expose the eyes of the readers to an overview of medieval life. Starting with the General Prologue, he expands on the various characters that are representative of the various tiers of society, from the nobility to the working class. His descriptions provide firsthand knowledge about the social, economic, and moral conditions of England in the late fourteenth century, but Chaucer was not a social reformer — he structures the tales according to social hierarchy, beginning with The Knight’s Tale, a symbol of chivalric duties and morals. Still, his tales
This performative display of joy creates a universal force that is directed at the whole world, independent of class status or ideology. Still, the performance of laughter may temper violence and control aggression between social classes. Bakhtin states, “festive folk laughter presents an element of victory not only over supernatural awe, over the sacred, over death; it also means the defeat of power, of earthly kings, of the earthly upper classes, of all that oppresses and restricts” (Bakhtin 210). Therefore, The Miller’s Tale can be read as an exercise in the tradition of complaint against the three-estate rule, conducted from the anti-authoritarian perspective of the slaphappy Miller. In his own terms, the Miller depicts each of the three estates of medieval society in addition to commenting on the separately tiered estate of women: Absolon depicts the Miller’s view on courtly manners and his view on knighthood and aristocracy; Nicholas represents the clerical establishment of the fourteenth century; John represents the working class, the estate of easily duped providers; Alisoun, finally, depicts the impurity that is associated