Jayakrishnan's Reviews > The Canterbury Tales

***MAJOR SPOILERS ALERT***

An essay that I wrote nearly a decade ago about The Canterbury Tales and its portrayal of women. It was for a course that I did, so the language is a bit academic and phoney.

The Canterbury Tales is a 14th century poem written by Geoffrey Chaucer. The poem offers us a vivid portrait of 14th century English society and the prevalent social order while also shedding light on the importance of and attitudes towards religion and status of and attitudes towards women in medieval society. The poem begins with a general introduction of the setting and an array of characters. At the beginning of The General Prologue, the narrator is resting at the Tabard inn in Southwark before his journey on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. It is spring time and the drought of March has given way to the sweet showers of April which has inspired people to go on pilgrimages. The inn where the narrator is resting is visited by 29 other pilgrims. The narrator meets the lot of them and gets to know them quite well. The narrator is a devout Christian and there is a sense of fellowship with the pilgrims who have arrived at the Tabard inn. The narrator proceeds to describe each and every pilgrim of the party beginning with the Knight.

It is interesting that the narrator introduces the chivalrous Knight, his well-mannered son (the squire) and the son's servant at the beginning itself. This could indicate that the narrator was acknowledging the Knight’s social status. The Knights represented the upper classes of the 14th century and were generally looked up to by one and all. The narrator is highly impressed by the knight who has won many battles but is meek in manner. The narrator then proceeds to introduce the religious order represented by the Nun/Prioress with excellent table manners, the monk with modern ideas and the friar (a religious beggar) who absolved people in return for gifts.

The religious order is described with both veneration as well as contempt. Even though Chaucer is extremely impressed by the nun/prioresses’ impeccable table manners, he also seems to be slightly irritated by her overreaction at the treatment of animals. The monk is interested in a life of luxury and has turned his back on ideas of self-denial and restraint, instead choosing a life of luxury and pleasure. It is impossible to know what Chaucer actually feels about the Monk and his ways as the monks’ ways are merely described as facts and the poet passes no judgment. The friars were beggars who were allowed to beg within a certain limit. However, Chaucer describes the friar as a cunning and lecherous man who begged beyond his allowed limits. He would deal with rich folks to receive gifts and avoid dealing with the poor at all. Chaucer describes the friar as representative of the corruption that has seeped into the prevalent religious order in medieval England.

We are then introduced to the pompous merchant, the student who is an ardent pursuer of education, the sergeant of the law and the Franklin who believes in having a good time. While we get detailed and vivid descriptions about the above mentioned people, Chaucer is not that kind to some of the lower classes of pilgrims. The haberdasher, dyer, carpenter, tapestry maker, weaver and their cook who are described only in terms of their tools and polished gear. This was also the case with the description of the squire’s servant who is described in terms of the weapons that he carries on his body. Also among the pilgrims is the shrewd skipper of Maudelayne, the skilled physician, the Wife of Bath who is a deaf clothier, the noble parson, his devout brother, the bawdy miller, the manciple, the cunning reeve (a foreman), the dishonest summoner and the pardoner who rode with the summoner.

There are a few instances in The Canterbury Tales which may point towards the importance of religion in medieval Britain. The narrator is impressed by the Knight who has carried his sword across all the lands of Christendom and even the lands of the heathen. This probably establishes the narrator's bigotry. The Prioress’s Tale which has a story about a Jew murdering a schoolboy is another example of religious bigotry in The Canterbury tales. In the Second Nun’s Tale Cecilia rebels against paganism, idolatry and continues to preach and teach Christianity even after she receives three strokes to the neck to kill her. The Second Nun’s Tale is an example of a religious biography. At the end of The Canterbury Tales there is a retraction or an apology of sorts by Chaucer. This apology might have been attached to the poem due to the fact that some of the tales narrated by the pilgrims during the pilgrimage involved farcical portrayal of infidelity, sanctioned lustful behavior and open suspicion and criticism of the prevalent religious order. These might have been perceived as blasphemous by the authorities. In The Knights Tale, Emily the Fair is portrayed as helpless even as Arcite and Palamon fight for her hand. It is interesting that Emily is unaware of the rivalry between the two men until the Duke of Thesus confronts the two fighting men. It must be noted that neither the Duke of Thesus nor the two men asks Emily the Fair whom she prefers or whether she prefers either of the two men. Even as Arcite and Palamon get ready to fight a tournament for Emily’s hand, Emily prays to Diana to make her a virgin for life and wishes to walk the woodlands wild and not to be a wife or be with child.

Women are often portrayed as untrustworthy and easily vulnerable to seduction in The Canterbury Tales. The women in The Miller’s Tale, The Reeve’s Tale and The Merchant’s Tale exemplify the sexually liberated female characters in the poem. These stories may also represent the male anxiety regarding the fidelity of the females. The female characters may also represent many of the negative stereotypes of women that existed in medieval England. In The Miller’s Tale the astrology student who stays for rent at a carpenter’s house makes passes at the carpenter’s wife. However, the carpenter’s wife does go to church after a rendezvous with the student to “search her conscience and do the work of Christ” where she is also courted by a parish clerk named Absalon. In the Reeve’s tale a pair of bible clerks beds the wife and daughter of a cheating miller. The clerk reacts to The Miller’s Tale with the following words: “guests who stay the night are dangerous. A man can’t be too careful when he brings a stranger in among his private things”. This may represent male anxiety about his woman’s fidelity, but the tale is also a morality tale where the dishonest miller is tricked by the Bible clerks and is taught a lesson. In both these tales, Chaucer combines the serious with the farcical. The Manciple concludes his tale of jealousy and murder by addressing his fellow pilgrims in the following “Never tell anyone in all your life that any other has enjoyed his wife, for he will hate you mortally”. The Monk narrates the tale of Samson (who was betrayed by his lover Dalia) and advises men to hold back secrets from their wives unless they want to sacrifice the safety of their limbs and lives like Samson.

The Merchant’s Tale, which is a fabliau, has May, the beautiful wife of January, the old knights wife climb the pear tree to make love with Damian, the knight’s squire. Not only does she make love to Damian but she also indirectly cures her husband’s blindness when King Pluto gives him back his eyesight as he is shocked by the act of lust. January and May are named after the seasons probably indicating that May who represents spring triumphs over January who represents cold and winter.

However, at no point does Chaucer judge or criticize the women for their amoral behavior in any of these tales. We cannot conclude that a view of the characters who narrates the tales in the poem indicates Chaucer’s own views on female infidelity or his own male anxiety.

The Wife of Bath is the strongest female character in The Canterbury Tales and has very strong views on marriage and maidenhood and the role of women in society. The Wife of Bath expresses her disdain for religious order very early in her tale when she says that there are no more fairies in Briton like in the time of King Arthur, but instead it is the friars who walk the length of the land and the women have to fear the friars as they might lay claim upon the women’s virtue. She herself admits that she has been married five times. The very fact that The Wife of Bath has married five times shows that she has little or no regard for the teachings of the church which prevent women from remarrying. However, her disdain for the religious order does not in anyway indicate her feelings about God. “For Hadde God commanded maydenhede, thanne hadde he dampned weddyng with dede, and certainly if seed were never sown, How ever could virginity be grown?” she says. She also says that both Abraham and Jacob had several brides. She also demands to know about a time or text where God disparages or sets prohibition upon marriages. The Wife of Bath’s use of God to defend her five marriages and her promiscuity shows that despite her disdain for the religious order and its teachings, she is actually a very devout person.

The Wife of Bath also resorts to provocation when she wonders aloud about the uses of the male and female genitalia. She contends that male and female genitalia were not simply to tell a male from a female or for excretion but also for propagation. She does defend herself by saying that her words are not intended to offend but only to amuse.

Despite all her talk on behalf of women, the Wife of Bath has no illusions about the sanctity of a woman’s behavior. In her prologue she is candid about ways in which a knowing woman can prove that her husband is at fault.

The Wife of Bath’s prologue probably enhances the male anxiety regarding the fidelity of females when she says that “And so I tell this tale to every man, Its all for sale and let him win who can. No empty- handed man can lure a bird.” In many ways, The Wife of Bath is symbolic of many negative stereotypes of women as gold diggers and lustful creatures that existed during the medieval times.

But so candid is The Wife of Bath about her own marriages and woman’s dominance in the bedroom that one cannot help but feel that Chaucer portrays sex as celebratory (despite the obvious economic connotations) and women in particular as liberated individuals. In fact when The Wife of Bath ends her tale by begging Jesus to hear her prayer to cut short the lives of men who refuse to be governed by women, one cannot help but feel that Chaucer intended more through his portrayal of the Wife of Bath than to simply perpetrate existing negative stereotypes about women. We must remember that Chaucer refrains from passing judgment on the Wife of Bath’s character and in The Friar’s Prologue (which follows The Wife of Bath’s tale) the Friar, who is part of the religious order says that much of what was spoken by the Wife of Bath was extremely impressive.

Griselda in The Clerk’s Tale is an example of a submissive female character in the poem. In a way Griselda’s character is the exact opposite of The Wife of Bath who has many nontraditional views on the role of women in 14th century British society. She continues to sacrifice her children in complete obedience to her husband who is testing her loyalty towards him by continuously torturing her, first by making her believe that her kids would be murdered and secondly by taking another wife for himself. But Griselda remains loyal throughout the torture inflicted upon her. Griselda is unimaginably virtuous (in fact when Walter, the Marquis first lays eyes on her, it is her perceived goodness and virtuousness that attracts him to her and not her beauty.). But the clerk himself at the end of the tale reminds the women among the pilgrims that his tale does not imply that all of them should follow Griselda’s example and live a life of virtuousness. But that everyone should be virtuous and constant in their own degree. However, in the envoy to his tale, the clerk recommends that women indulge themselves in over the top behavior and enjoy themselves to their hearts content.

The Canterbury Tales mostly portrays women as untrustworthy especially when it comes to their sexuality.