Preview

The Millers Fabliau Tale

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
511 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Millers Fabliau Tale
English/E Trevor Granville
In Class: Canterbury Essay 10/23/12

The Miller’s Fabliau
Within Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, he exemplifies an example all the characteristics of a fabliau in The Miller’s Tale. Two points, with which he chooses to satirize from the fabliau, The Miller’s Tale, are love at first sight and May/December marriages. In the Miller’s Tale, the main character, John, who is a carpenter is married to the beautiful, younger, Alison. Johns wife Alison, not only engages in a relationship with a young man by the name of Nicolas, who lives with them, but she has some “fun” with Nicholas while John is off distracted as a result of Nicholas warning John of a fake flood, which to his knowledge is fast approaching. Chaucer uses powerful, risqué, and vulgar language that characterize this tale as a fabliau.
For starters, Chaucer reveals a scene of lust between Nicholas and Alison. “Her collar revealed a broach as boss upon a shield”(90.) This excerpt is a strong example of the amount of risqué behavior in fabliaus. In the Middle Ages, to show skin around your neck and chest region would be very sexual and seen as inappropriate. The sexually immoral action continues with Alison and Nick having a “Good time” and “And at the window she put her hole. And Absalon, so fortune framed the force, put up his mouth and kissed her naked arse”(103). This crude and vulgar slapstick humor worsens with Absolon,“This Nicholas at once let fly a fart as loud as if it were a thunder-clap”(105). The lust shown in all of the quotes strongly represents the elements of sexual, vulgar, and crude language within a traditional fabliau. Fabliau’s consist not only of this crude and rude behavior, but the other most important piece of a fabliau is the concept of cuckolded husbands. These stories often contain an older man and a younger woman in a relationship where the young beautiful wife cheats on her husband. “Here comes Nowel’s Flood!” By

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Box Man Analysis

    • 533 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The movie starts out with a group of men breaking into a building to steal money. The safe-cracker, also referred to as “The boxman,” is a young man by the name of Jason McAlister. He is a quirky and unconventional in the way that he listens to music while he dance walks to the safe and does not hurt anyone personally. However, the other men who are with him are tying up hostages and knocking out people in the building. One of the hostages manages to call the police and the men have to rush through the rest of their Jason cracks the safe with no problem listening to his music the whole time. The men rush into the safe and start taking all of the money inside. There are also several papers on shelves which Jason has been instructed not to take,…

    • 533 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Geoffrey Chaucer's book of tales one story stands out in how it depicts the marriage of not one but three men. One example of the negative side of how chaucer depicts marriage is In Miller's Tale. In the tale the three characters who are two clerks and an elderly man are put in a scandal of deception and adultery with the elderly mans wife. The two clerks, Nicholas and Absalon, both try to engage in sexual relations with Alison the old man's wife. Both of the men are guilty of trying to seduce Alison, which shows that both do not care for the laws and rules of marriage. And on the other end the elderly man's much younger wife Allison disrespects her husband then proceeds to pick Nicholas. The marriage was doomed from the start with the elderly man questioning himself on…

    • 562 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The gothic genre, thought to be introduced in 1769 by Horace Walpole’s noel The Castle of Otranto, was remembered for its crude, grotesque, exaggerated nature. Although in medieval times the Gothic movement had not commenced, Chaucer’s can be considered a forerunner to this movement as many aspects in the pardoners tale are clear gothic, however Chaucer did not perceive his writing as Gothic, he did not intentional write a Gothic tale like later authors did. The pardoner’s tale is considered the most Gothic out of all the ‘Canterbury Tales’ as it is the most abundant with gothic elements. These elements include Chaucer’s description of the Pardoner, the attractiveness of evil in the text, the presence of supernatural and horror, the digressions, and the personification of death. It’s because of the gothic elements this text that modern interpretations have viewed The Pardoners’ Tale as one of the earliest examples of a Gothic text.…

    • 1219 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The reaction to Harry Bailey’s disapproval of pilgrim Chaucer’s ‘romantic’ tale is may be an unconscious desire causing him to have a homoerotic fantasy. Even though Sir Thopas’ gender identity is unclear in the tale, it appears as though Harry Bailey is looking for something else, possibly more erotic than what pilgrim Chaucer is giving him. For example, Harry Bailey was promised a story about romance, “For oother tale certes kan I noon, / But of a rym I lerned longe agoon” (Chaucer 708-709) yet it appears that this particular style of a romance tale is not what Harry Bailey is looking for. Wood writes, “The story of ‘Thopas’ has sexual imagery enough to accord with what the Host might expect from a presumed lecher, but the tale is devoid of any sexual encounters - imagery remains imagery” (389).…

    • 276 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Title In the early morning of February 3, 1948, in Queens, New York, John and Angela Miller’s one and only son was born. I was that only son. MORE HERE. Although they say that I was the greatest thing to happen to them, sadly, it never seemed like it.…

    • 1261 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The fabliaux, "The Reeve 's Tale" and "The Miller 's Tale" of Geoffrey Chaucer 's The Canterbury Tales, express similar characteristics yet simultaneously express differences. "The Reeve 's Tale" is far more perverse than "The Miller 's Tale", which is expressed as a story of slapstick humor and ignorance. Both "The Reeve 's Tale" and "The Miller 's Tale" coincide on the topic of deception. Both of these tales express the theme of revenge. "The Reeve 's Tale" concentrates on the theme of sin more than "The Miller 's Tale" does. Both "The Reeve 's Tale" and "The Miller 's Tale" possess the common topic of lust. Both these fabliaux manifest their narrator 's motive for reciting these tales. Nevertheless, the clear victor between the conflict…

    • 1244 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Miller’s tale played as a fabliaux, in the sense that as it deals with adultery and with bawdy wordplay leading up to the tale’s bittersweet conclusion. As well as the Miller’s Tale being exemplar because of the way equal control of marriage was related to both tales of rape, The Wife of Bath and The Reeves’s Tale. In the Miller’s Tale, Chaucer gives his reader a hypothetical replacement to the disapproving views on sexuality by the Church. In the likeness of a peasant, Chaucer presents a freer, more innocent, portrait of the character Allison of Oxenford. Through her characterization Chaucer portrays the image of sexual nature, and only in this tale the nature maintains by a character. Since her sexual nature defies sexual restrictions imposed by the Church while at the same time creating its own meaning to love, I feel like she placed her love over her religion. Chaucer simply wanted to express through the Miller that the “common man” could tell a tale that others within the audience at that time…

    • 756 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the journey of Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer paints a vivid image of the medieval world. He brings forth three prominent concepts in the General Prologue, Pardoner's Prologue and Tale, and The Wife of Bath’s Tale. All tales satirically drenched with persuasive ideas, most would agree that his iconoclastic stories are dangerous for introducing aloud a different view on the church, gender relations and economic divisions. Creating doubt against the morals and true intentions of the church, bringing to light the inequality between genders and proposing a division between economic classes.…

    • 794 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Elizabeth Proctor and Abigail Williams are two main characters in Arthur Miller’s novel The Crucible. Abigail Williams was once the servant for Proctor however Elizabeth Proctor fires her after she learns about Abigail and her husband’s affair. Both women are same in some ways but they have different motives.…

    • 316 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer has remained as one of the most developed pieces of satirical work. Each of Chaucer’s pilgrims depict traits that often conflict with the positions they hold in society. Between four particular tales, the characteristics of their statuses become sardonic over exaggerations of the traditional roles found in marriage. The speakers of each fable portray their perspectives on the institution, showing the complexity in defining the fundamentals of a successful marriage. Throughout these tales, Chaucer shows contrasting perspectives on where governance lies in a marriage and how to achieve bliss in such a custom.…

    • 1530 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, The Reeve’s Tale describes how two college boys met the Miller and decide to set him straight. In the prologue of the tale, the Reeve, named Oswald, reflects on the Miller’s tale. Oswald seems to be the only person who was not amused my the Miller’s tale, and therefore in his tale, decides to expand on these feelings in his tale.…

    • 551 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Pardoner S Tale

    • 572 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Describe the rioters’ plan for the gold and how it proves fatal to all three of them.…

    • 572 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Divorce rates have increased rapidly since the 1960s from 27000 in the UK in 1961 to 167000 by 2005. There are many reasons for this increase, for example decreased stigma of divorce, secularisation, more rights for women, rising expectations, and acts put in place by the government making it easier for a couple to obtain a divorce.…

    • 580 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    tale, three friends begin a journey in order to murder Death. On their journey, though, an…

    • 638 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Miller’s Tale from The Canterbury Tales shows many elements of a fabliau. A fabliau is a short story that had comical and colorful observations on life. The stories would make comical shots at marriage, treatment of women, and religion. Since the story that the Miller tells is about a carpenter's wife that cheats on him, the Reeve doesn’t want the Miller to tell his story. A common occurrence in a fabliau is a love triangle with four people. In the Miller’s Tale there is a character named Nicholas who is living with the carpenter and his wife Alison. Nicholas falls in love with Alison and she falls in love with him. Alison is still in love with the carpenter too. The fourth person in the story is a parish clerk named Absalon, and he is…

    • 338 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics