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Transcript

The Miller's Tale

Who is the Miller?

  • Red-haired
  • Loves crude, bawdy jokes and drinking.
  • Immensely stout and strong, able to lift doors off their hinges or knock them down by running at them with his head.
  • He has a wart on his nose
  • He wears a sword and buckler
  • He steals from his customers and plays the bagpipes
  • A commoner
  • The Miller reminds everyone that he is drunk and therefore shouldn’t be held accountable for anything he says.
  • He also points out that he is married himself but doesn’t worry whether some other man is sleeping with his wife because it is none of his business.
  • Chaucer sees this character as foolish.

"The Miller's Tale" is the story of a carpenter, his lovely wife, and the two clerks (students) who are eager to get her into bed. The carpenter, John, lives in Oxford with his much younger wife, Alisoun, who is something of a local beauty. To make a bit of extra money, John rents out a room in his house to a poor but clever scholar named Nicholas, who has taken a liking to Alisoun. Another scholar in the town, Absolon the parish clerk, also has his eye on Alisoun.

John makes a day trip to a nearby town. While he is gone, Nicholas convinces Alisoun to have sex with him. Shortly afterward, Alisoun goes to church, where Absolon sees her and immediately falls in love. He tries to win Alisoun's sexual favors by singing love songs under her window and taking a part in the local play to try to get her attention. Alisoun rebuffs all his efforts, for she's already involved with Nicholas.

Nicholas, meanwhile, longs to spend a whole night in Alisoun's arms, so he and Alisoun hatch a scheme to do this. He convinces John that God is about to send a great flood like the one he sent in Noah's time. He says that God told him they could save themselves by hanging three large buckets from the ceiling to sleep in. Once the waters rose, they would cut the ropes and float away. John believes him and duly climbs into his bucket. He thinks Nicholas and Alisoun are doing the same, but in fact, they are spending the night together in John's bed.

That same night, Absolon comes to the window and begs Alisoun to give him a kiss. At first she refuses him, but she finally appears to give in. Instead of presenting her lips to Absolon's, though, she sticks her butt out the window, and Absolon kisses her "arse" in the dark. Angry at being fooled, Absolon gets a hot poker with which he intends to brand Alisoun. When he comes back to her window, though, Nicholas sticks his butt out in an attempt to get in on the joke. Absolon brands him with the hot poker, and he cries out "Water!" to assuage the pain.

John, hearing this from his bucket, thinks the flood is upon them and cuts the rope that's attaching him to the ceiling, sending him crashing to the floor. The townspeople hear the racket, rush to the scene, and, upon hearing Nicholas's version of events, laugh at and mock poor John.

  • Straightforward, Deadpan

The narrator of "The Miller's Tale" usually describes

characters and events without adding much personal insight or involvement.

The humor in this tone derives from the

contrast between the nature of the events and

the straightforward manner in which they're

described, which fails to acknowledge this humor.

For example, in perhaps the funniest moment in

"The Miller's Tale," when Absolon kisses Alisoun's

bare butt, the narrator says only, "and Absalom fared

neither better nor worse than with his mouth to kiss her naked arse/ with much relish, before he knew what he was doing"(547-548).

The narrator goes on to register Absolon's surprise

at being confronted with a "beard" without ever

acknowledging the humor of this scene.

"The Miller's Tale" is funny enough that we

don't need a narrator to tell us when to laugh.

The best example of this style in "The Miller's Tale" comes

in Alison's portrait, where her body is

described as "her body was as graceful and slim as a weasel's" pg.209(48),

her eyebrows as "...black as a sloe," or blackthorn bush pg. 211(60).

Nicholas's cry of "Water!" prompts John to fall from the roof. In a somewhat separate, but still Biblical allegory, you can even interpret Nicholas's fart, "as greet as it had been a thonder-dent" and cry of "Water!" as an allegory of the flood that God sends to Noah many years after the fall of man.

It continues to be humorous

when Absalon kisses Alison's

buttocks, brands Nicholas on

the buttocks, and the Carpenter

cuts the rope to his tub and falls

to the ground.

This is typical of Chaucer because he is very sympathetic to women, even though he mocks the wife in the Miller's tale.

Analysis

Chaucer's Writing Style

  • Iambic Pentameter in Rhyming Couplets, Earthy and Bawdy

Genre

Allegory

Tone

  • Satire and Parody, Fabliau

Analysis

Themes

Lies & Deceit

Alison cheats on John. Alison tricks Absolon into believing she's going to give him a kiss. Absolon tells Alison all he wants is a kiss.

And in the most elaborate ruse in "The Miller's Tale," Nicholas and Alison convince John that a flood is coming and he'd better spend the night hanging from his rafters in a tub.

Competition

"The Miller's Tale" portrays one of the most classic competitions in literature: the love triangle in which two men compete for the affections of one woman. The woman is the "prize" to be won.

Setting

-In a carpenter’s house in Oxford, England, around 1380.

-It's important that this story is set in Oxford because this is a university town with a large,male, student population. -

-Oxford is a place where a young, beautiful woman would be very likely to catch the eye of many an eligible bachelor, among whom she would be a hot commodity.

-The presence of the university and its highly-educated clientele emphasizes the contrast between cunning, (Oxford clerks), and its lack, (the hapless carpenter) who serves them.

-The fact that most of the action takes place inside John's house and, more specifically, in his bedroom, clues us in to the fact that this is a domestic drama – a story about a man and wife and family life.

Summary of the tale:

(cc) photo by theaucitron on Flickr

Video

(cc) photo by Metro Centric on Flickr

(cc) photo by jimmyharris on Flickr

(cc) photo by Metro Centric on Flickr

(cc) photo by Franco Folini on Flickr

Results

The Miller's Tale

edited by: Mrs. Brewer

Research

Fabliau

General Prologue

Miller's Prologue

  • A comic, often anonymous tale written by jongleurs in northeast France
  • They are generally characterized by excessive sexual obscenity

Notes

Quote:

Chaucer, speaking as the narrator, to the reader:

"The miller is a lout, as you're aware;

So was the reeve, and so were many more.

They both told bawdy stories. Then beware,

And do not lay upon me all the blame,

Or take in earnest what is meant in fun."

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