Analysis Of The Selected Tales From The Canterbury Tales By Geoffrey Chaucer

There are many tales in the book, such as the Knight’s tale, the Miller’s tale, the Reeve’s tale and the Cook’s tale, etc. After reading several tales in the book, I just wonder why Chaucer put the Knight’s tale in the very beginning. One of the reasons is that this tale was told by a pilgrim. If the knight with higher status was very eager to win the contest, it showed the other people this contest was worth competing in. Compared with the Miller, the reeve and Cook, the first teller had higher status. It is much better to start the story with someone with higher status. There is a social status gap between the pilgrim and other story tellers. Compared with the Knight’s tale, the following two tales are very ridiculous. I think the arrangement of the tales is reasonable because when we read something sad, we want to read something fun to relax. Chaucer may think in the same way that these two absurd tales follow the Knight’s tale. And two ludicrous tales are fun enough to bring readers from the sadness of Arcite’s death and there is no need to continue Cook’tale. So, Chaucer doesn’t finish the Cook’s tale.

We often use “dark ages” to describe Middle Ages. In medieval society, women’s position is decided by unfavourable attitudes of patriarchs. For example, in the Physician’s tale, the knight called Virginius killed his daughter, who possessed both beauty and virtue because he didn’t want Appius to get her. Even though the daughter begged her father and other solutions, Virginius still took his sword and cut off her head so that she could die a virgin. Some readers may think this cruel and it might really happen in medieval society as literature should be a mirror of the real life. Even though the food they ate, the way they talked and they clothes they wore were very different from now, we still can find something we want and think about the reasons of some events after reading.

There are also some examples to show women’s status in the Knight’s tale. In the beginning of the tale, the duke Theseus, who was the lord and governor of Athens, with his wisdom and chivalry, conquered the Amazons and married the queen Ypolita of Scithia. Even though Thesesus was a hero, but the tale didn’t give us any clue whether Ypolita was willing to marry him. The same happened to her sister Emelye, who was brought back by Thesus. There were no lines in the tale to describe what the two women thought when they were brought away from the place they were familiar with.

Another example in this tale is Emelye’s prayer when she knew she had to marry the winner of the fight, Arcite or Palamon. "O chaste goddesse of the wodes grene, To whom bothe hevene and erthe and see is sene, Queene of the regne of Pluto derk and lowe, Goddesse of maydens, that myn herte hast knowe Ful many a yeer, and woost what I desire, As keepe me fro thy vengeaunce and thyn ire, That Attheon aboughte cruelly. Chaste goddesse, wel wostow that I Desire to ben a mayden al my lyf, Ne nevere wol I be no love ne wyf. I am, thow woost, yet of thy compaignye, A mayde, and love huntynge and venerye, And for to walken in the wodes wilde, And noght to ben a wyf and be with childe. Noght wol I knowe compaignye of man. Now help me, lady, sith ye may and kan, For tho thre formes that thou hast in thee. And Palamon, that hath swich love to me, And eek Arcite, that loveth me so soore, This grace I preye thee withoute moore, Someone may wonder why Emelye didn’t want get married.

I think it is understandable why she didn’t want to marry. She came from Amazon and she the Amazons were a race of women warlike who were famous for their courage and pride. She wanted herself to be an Amazon and didn’t want to be a tool for political stability. This is a society different from patriarchy. But she was helpless because she was Athens, a male world. Even though she expressed her thoughts very clearly to Diana, she was told that her fate was decided by higher power. Her own opinion was not important. We can’t find any lines to show that Theseus asked whether Emily wanted to marry. Even her sister didn’t ask her neither. Finally, she had to accept the destiny proscribed to her by Diana and Theseus, and married Palamon. For thee the Gods on high have set their term, And by eternal word and writ confirm, That thou shalt be espoused to one of those, That have for thee endured so many woes, Here comes another question. Did the brothers really love Emelye? When Theseus vanquished Creon, two young royal cousins, Arcite and Palamon, were found among the bodies. Instead of killing them, Theseus put them in prison in Athens for life. They lived without any passions until they saw Emelye in a nearby garden. Both fell immediately in love with her. The two fought for her and each called the other a traitor. It is true that they were attracted by her at the first sight, but I don’t think they loved her. To them, Emelye was a symbol of freedom and beauty. They were in jail for many years and the appearance of Emelye was the hope of life to them. That’s why Palamon compared her to Venus and Arcite claimed that he would rather be dead without having Emelye. She was treated as goods in marriage by Theseus. We couldn’t know what happened to Emelye and Arcite if they got married because Arcite died. But we knew that what their life was like when Emelye and Palamon married in the end. Was that a happy ending? Hath Palamon ywedded Emelye. Sende hym his love that hath it deere aboght;For now is Palamon in alle wele, Lyvynge in blisse, in richesse, and in heele, And Emelye hym loveth so tendrely, And he hire serveth so gentilly, That nevere was ther no word hem bitweneOf jalousie or any oother teene. Thus endeth Palamon and Emelye;And God save al this faire compaignye! Amen. We all know that different people have different definitions about happy marriage. But a marriage without words between a husband and a wife is not harmonious one. No words means no quarrels on the one hand, but on the other hand, there is no communication between the couple.

It is also ironic that Chaucer used many lines to describe the funeral in front of the wedding and he also told us that Emelye was “the most sorrowful of the company” in the Arcite’s funeral. If Palamon died in the fighting and Emelye married Arcite in the end, they might still have a marriage without a word. It seemed that Emeye’s marriage was always overshadowed by the death of one of the brothers. Besides talking about the status of women in medieval society, Chaucer also told us that the friendship between males was easy to break up. The two cousins almost instantly betrayed each other when they saw Emelye the first sight. Greet was the strif and long bitwix hem tweye, If that I hadde leyser for to seye; But to th'effect. It happed on a day, some people think the reason why Chaucer was so hostile to sworn brotherhood is he hated homophobia, but I think Chaucer may want to show that the desires of humans can change a person completely and this may let us focus more on the desires of humans.