The Canterbury Tales takes place in a tavern near London called the Tabard Inn. The narrator is staying at the inn with twenty-nine pilgrims who are all traveling to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury. The pilgrims are a wide range of people and characters. The Host, Harry Bailey, makes the point that they should all ride together and entertain one another with stories. I believe Chaucer uses this setting in order to tell many different types of tales.
The first pilgrim to tell a story is the Knight. He tells a tale of two knights: Arcite and Palamon. They were wounded in battle by the Duke of Athens, Theseus. The Duke decides to imprison them rather than execution.
During their imprisonment they both fell in love with the Duke’s sister-in-law, Emily. After fighting over who was more worthy of Emily, Arcite was freed from prison through the help of a friend. However, he was banished from Athens and was to never return.
Arcite returns in disguise as a personal attendant for Emily. When his fellow knight, Palamon, is freed from prison, he confronts Arcite and they begin to fight over her again. The Duke apprehends them and arranges a tournament, with Emily as the prize, between the two knights and their best men. Arcite wins, but he is thrown from his horse and dies. Palamon then marries Emily instead. It makes sense that the Knight would tell this story because it is filled with knights, love, honor, chivalry, and adventure.
I believe that Chaucer chose the Knight to tell this story because it emphasizes rules of honor and proper conduct. In the story, the Knight describes the Duke like this:
“Of Athens he was lord and governor, and in his time was such a conqueror that greater was there not beneath the sun. Full man a rich country had he won; what with his wisdom and his chivalry.” (Chaucer 17)
The Knight aspires to have the wisdom and chivalry like the Duke in this tale.
Once the Knight is finished telling his tale the Host calls upon the Monk to tell a story; but the Miller, who is very drunk, interrupts and announces that he will tell a story. The Miller’s story is about John, an old and jealous carpenter who is married to a young girl named Alison. John rents out a room to a young astrology student named Nicholas who falls in love with Alison. Nicholas and Alison devise a plan in order to sleep with each other. Nicholas convinces John that there will be a large flood soon, much like the one Noah encountered in the Bible, and in order to survive this flood John should build three tubs to the rafters. John listens to Nicholas and the evening before the fake flood John, Alison, and Nicholas get into the tubs. Once the carpenter fell asleep Alison and Nicholas snuck away to Alison’s bed where they stayed the night.
In the middle of the night Absalon goes to Alison’s window and begs for one kiss, which Alison agrees to. However when Absalon goes in for the kiss, he is greeted instead with Alison’s rear end.
After this scene of embarrassment Absalon leaves and returns with a poker from the blacksmith. He calls out to Alison telling her he has a golden ring for her, but this time Nicholas comes to the window with his rear end sticking out. At this point Absalon thrusts the red-hot poker up Nicholas’s arse. Nicholas cries out “Help! Water! Water! For God’s dear heart!” This riot causes John to cut the rope that held his boat suspended and crashes to the floor causing him to break his arm. The neighbors all laugh at John’s crazy plan. This is undoubtedly one of the most vulgar and humorous tales Chaucer wrote. I believe he chose the drunken Miller to tell this story because a drunken man usually has no filter and thus gave Chaucer an excuse to tell this tale through him.
The Wife of Bath is a wealthy and worldly woman. The wife prefers experience rather than authority as she states,
“Experience, though no authority were in this world, were good enough for me, to speak
Of woe that is in all marriage; for, masters, since I was twelve years of age, thanks be to
God who is for aye alive, of husbands at church door have I had five; for men so many
Times have wedded me; and all were worthy men in their degree.” (Chaucer 70)
She sees nothing wrong with having had five husbands and prefers the biblical command to go forth and multiply. The Wife talks about how she gained control over all five of her husbands, and she challenges anyone to show her that God commanded virginity. She then tells the tale of the lusty young knight in King Arthur’s court that rapes a young woman. Traditionally the knight would be beheaded but the queen and ladies of the court determine the knight’s fate by giving him a year to discover what women most desire. The knight then meets an old foul woman who gives him the answer that he is looking for but demands that he marries her; the knight, in agony, agrees. At the wedding, the old woman makes the point that if she were beautiful many men would be after her but since she is ugly and unpleasant she is a virtuous wife. She tells him to give her a kiss because, “For by my truth, to you I will be both; that is to say, I’ll be both good and fair.” (Chaucer 92) Once they had kissed she became a lovely young woman, and they lived happily ever after. The Wife of Bath used this tale as a story to answer the question of “What do women most desire?” The Wife of Bath’s tale also favors the rule of women rather than men and she demonstrates this with the rapist being saved or redeemed by a woman. I believe Chaucer puts this story in the Wife of Bath’s mouth to please any feminist reading his book. When it is time for the Pardoner to tale his tale, the Host asks him to tell a story with more moral than the story the physician told before. The Pardoner is a terrible hypocrite who uses the church’s wealth and goods to sell for his own profit, yet he tells the pilgrims frequently “love of money is the root of all evil.” The Pardoner’s Tale is about three men who are after a thief called Death. On their journey, they run into and old man who directs them to a tree at the end of the lane where they can find Death. When they reach the tree, they find eight bushels of gold coins. The two older men send off the younger one to get food and wine from the town. Meanwhile, they plot to kill him and take his share of the gold when he returns. The youngest also planned to kill the two older men by putting poison in their drinks. When the youngest returns the older men kill him, but once they took drinks of the wine they too died, leaving the gold for no one. The Pardoner uses this tale to show the love of money is the root of all evil and that is why all three men ended up deceased. At the end of the Pardoner’s tale, the Host is attacking the selfish and greedy Pardoner for attempting to sell the Host a relic. I believe that Chaucer placed the tales in specific characters’ mouths in order to tell stories of all genres in one book. With a whole group of pilgrims that varied greatly, Chaucer could use the personality and background of each pilgrim to his advantage and tell a great number of tales from various genres.