Essay Sample on The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales are stories written by Geoffrey Chaucer, which he is best known for. It is a collection of stories largely written in verse form whereby Chaucer employs his observation skills to create an image of the English society at the time, through the description of the significant example characters. The tales' tones are mostly derisive, accurate, ironic, and also tactful. He explores these individuals in the stories who are pretty different from each other, pointing out their vices, virtues, and features and letting them interact in many cases.
On the one hand, The Tale of the Nun's Priest is narrated to the knight who pleads that no more misfortunes stories should be narrated pointing out that they require some delight to establish the sense of balance right. The host concurs and asks the Nun's priest to travel along with the Second Nun and Prioress for a lively tale and the Nun's Priest agrees and starts his tale. It is a story of an underprivileged aged widow that leads a humble way of life in a small house with her two daughters. She owns very few properties including a sheep, three cows, three sows, and some chickens. Chanticleer, one of the chickens, acts as her clock and has many hen-wives but he truly loves a hen referred to as Pertelote. Chanticleer experiences many terrible nightmares and Pertelote advises him. Thus, it is a story of the Chanticleer and his lovely hen-wife Pertelote.

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On the other hand, the prologues to The Miller's Tale describe how the pilgrims applaud the Tale of the Knight, and Host who is pleased requests the Monk to tell a story that matches it. However, before the monk be able to say a word, the Miller disrupts belligerent and drunk and promises to narrate a tale that will match the knights (3126). The Host persuades Miller to allow another better person to narrate the following story. The Miller intimidates to leave, the host allows him to tell his story. The story is introduced as a lifetime of John, a carpenter, and his wife, and how a clerk deceived him, which the audience understands to signify that the clerk slept with the wife of the carpenter (3142). Miller warns the audience in advance that those easily affronted should avoid to another fable and apologizes for its bawdiness. In this light, the paper will compare and contrast how these two Canterbury tales treat women.

Women's Representation in the Tales of the Nun’s Priest

In The Canterbury Tales, there are many female characters, some appear as part of the story being told, while others are part of the group of storytellers. Among the women characters in the two tales, one indeed was not human, a hen pertelote introduced in the Nun's Priest's Tale, while in the Miller's Tale, the carpenter's wife is a woman. The prioress is one of the women that is mentioned in the Nun's Priest's Tale prologue. Chaucer describes the prioress as a vain, bobbly-acting woman who takes in great consideration of other people's opinions about her. Also, in the story prologue, the Second Nun is among the people traveling with the Priest's Nun's, in comparison to other women characters, the audience has a very visible set of information about the woman. It is probably the intentional choice of the author concerning her full dedication and commitment to God, which have inevitably wiped out most of her personality.

Both stories' prologues are similar since there are women. In Miller's story, the author explains how the pilgrims approve the just concluded Tale of the Knights. However, among the pilgrims, there were women the Prioress, the Second Nun, and Bath's Wife are among the pilgrims. The second Nun is described as the last Pilgrim. Therefore, both stories were narrated to the same audiences. However, there is a difference between the stories of women characters. In The Tale of the Nun's Priest, the character is a Hen while in Miller's Tale the character is a woman named Alison, and wife to the carpenter.

Women Characters in Both Stories

Alison

Alison is a character in the story told by Miller and is a young woman since she is eighteen years old. As her name implies, it represents youth, spring, a time when life begins and the flowers start to blossom. Further, she is depicted as being extremely beautiful and youthful. In Miller's narrative, Alison is described as "fair was this young wife" (3233), and "she was more blissful to look at" (3247). Alison has married a too much older man and her beauty provokes the jealousy of her husband which led her to be held captive of her husband. In Alison's case, her husband always ensured that he keeps her at a close hand just to make sure he knows her whereabouts since the author depicts her as young and wild and the husband was old (3225). Nevertheless, she cheats on her husband despite his jealousy, she manages to form a relationship with a younger suitor and fell in love and finally betrayed her husband. Therefore, the carpenter's fear of being made a fool of comes to pass and his wife becomes disobedient and wicked.

In the prologue of the Miller's Tale, he insinuates that women cannot be trusted since all married men are in danger of being deceived and betrayed. He hints that only those that are unmarried can be safe from such a disgrace. Therefore, the author exhibit women as betrayers of men "who hath no wfy, he is no cokeworld (3152)." There the author shows that women keep secrets from their men and showcase how allowing them to keep these secrets is dangerous or what happens if they are permitted to keep secrets. Therefore, Alison epitomizes the clergy's notion of a wicked woman. Women are viewed as feeble and easily fall into betrayal and sin.

Interestingly, Alison represents medieval women who lacked control in their lives since they were subjects of the patriarchal society. Her suitor was essential older than the bride and therefore, women of this time encountered long widowhood. In truth, Allison cheating on her husband exposes a specific kind of revolt against her circumstance. Therefore, the woman in Miller's tale is represented as rebellious. She resists the truth of being captive and subject of her old carpenter husband and demonstrates her own will, seeking a romantic relationship that she likes and with a partner of the same age. Therefore, the author demonstrates the women able to stand up against their father and other men, who held the power of choosing the brides for their daughters who lacked autonomy.

Pertelote

Pertelote is the wife of the cock, referred to as Chanticleer. She is described as a hen with the fairest hued on her throat and her name is fair Miss Pertelote. She is depicted as courteous, discreet, friendly, and fairly. Her good looks are compared to the cock. Like the cock, she is good-looking (51).

In the story, her husband saw a beast like a hound who has gripped her head body and wanted to kill him. However, Miss Pertelote convinced him that dreams have no meaning. The author personifies the hen into a woman. Therefore, Miss Pertelote looked down the cowardice and anxiety of her husband and of his shocking attitude. In the woman's mind, believing in dreams was superstitions. She is represented as a woman who relies on her husband very much. She holds that her husband should provide and be reliable for his wife. To her, it is the wisdom, generosity, and bravery that she thinks a good husband should possess. Furthermore, she makes it clear that she cannot love a coward who is afraid of dreams.

Pertelote is depicted as clueless since her husband quoted many classics to support his viewpoint on whether the rooster should fear the dream or not. Some of the quotes were taken from diverse places including exemplum in the bible, stories in mythology, and historical records. Nonetheless, Pertelote is seen to believe in scientism, she claims that dreams are created by gourmandizing, of gas, and disorders. And posits that Chanticleer's dreams are as a result of the great superfluity of red bile and request him to take herbs or laxative (181).

The author depicts that women are easily flattered. The couple reconciles soon due to the cock's sweet words. He praises her beauty by stating that it causes him to fear dying.