The Wife Of Bath’s Prologue: Love The Weapon Of Mass Destruction

Love is a theme that will always play an important part in the life of any human. Love is a need for the human race rather than a want. In the three tales that I have read so far of The Canterbury Tales love is present in all of them. If all the tales have elements of love I might as well say that Chaucer was greatly influenced by love or has a strong opinion about love. We discussed a little about what Chaucer thought of love in class but we didn't reach a conclusion. In my opinion Chaucer thinks of love as a very powerful weapon but in most cases it is used to do damage rather than make people happy. It was the love of Emelye that separated the life time friends Arcite and Palamon, as well as the love for Alisoun made Nicholas and Absolon fight for her love. Neither in The Knight's Tale or in The Miller's Tale love has been shown as a happy thing. Before I started reading The Wife Of Bath's Prologue from the title I thought it would be a different story because in the title there was the word wife which I thought meant loyalty to the husband and happiness. As I started reading I found out that things were very different and I would say that it was the opposite. The woman in this story has married five times and is along the whole tale trying to justify why she married and backing it up with God's teachings. This woman didn't really love each husband because she said: "I governed hem so wel, after my lawe, That ech of hem ful blisful was and fawe To brynge me gaye thynges fro the fayre. They were ful glad whan I spak to hem faire, For, God it woot, I chidde hem spitously." (219-223) This woman doesn't sound like the loving wife who really cares about her husband, she sounds more like the wife that will marry for money and play with her husband so she would get what she wants. In this case the love shown by Chaucer isn't the ideal love that so many movies and books have illustrated. I think that the idea of the ideal love only will exist in movies or books because this is based on people with no defects. As we have seen each time we make a mistake, we humans are not perfect and sometimes make mistakes so therefore the perfect and ideal love will never be possible. In this tale there is also a case in which love is the major weapon used to destroy emotionally someone. The emotional destruction that a person may have when their loved one has cheated on them can be huge and when she said: "But certeinly, I made folk swich cheereThat in his owene grece I made hym frye For angre, and for verray jalousye. By God, in erthe I was his purgatorie," (486-489) her husband must have been devastated. After reading this part where the women makes her husband burn in jealousy I confirmed my theory that Chaucer thinks that love is a huge weapon. I also concluded that Chaucer doesn't see love as a good thing, rather he sees it as a horrible force that will separate friends and make many fights appear. There was also a giant war that happened between Argos and Troy because love had controlled Paris so much that he was drawn into taking Helena with him. I think that both writers would agree that love is a destructing force because in both books they make love have negative effects. Chaucer must have had a horrible marriage and relationships by the way he pictures love in his tales.

The Miller’s Tale: The Weird Middle Ages

There are many contradictions and things that are very exaggerated in The Miller's Tale. At first the characters do not seem like anything weird just a carpenter, a clerk, a wife, and a priest. When John the carpenter marries Alisoun he loves her a lot but I thought it was too overprotective. When the narrator says: "This carpenter hadde wedded newe a wyf, Which that he lovede moore than his lyf; Of eighteteene yeer she was of age. Jalous he was, and heeld hire narwe in cage, For she was wylde and yong, and he was old." (3221-3225) That could have been normal in the middle ages to confine the women to the house and never let her go out. I think that in those times that could have probably happened because the man was the supreme force of authority and whatever he said had to be done. In the present I think a relationship where the man told a woman to stay in the house and never go outside would be really difficult. In the present the woman has more freedom and is more self sufficient than it was before when she depended on the man to survive. The reason that the carpenter hid his wife was because he was old and she was young and wild, which meant that if she had the chance to go to the outside world she wouldn't come back. That could be also seen that Alisoun was in some way forced to marry John rather than by own choice. I still think it is really exaggerated to lock up a person in a house just because you have fear that you will lose him or her. There was another part that really brought to my mind contradiction and maybe a bit of satire. Absolon who is a priest is part of the Catholic Church which was the strongest institution in the middle ages. Absolon's activities were described like this: "In al the toun nas brewhous ne tavern That he ne visited with his solas, Ther any gaylard tappestere was. But sooth to seyn, he was somdeel squaymousOf fartyng, and of speche daungerous." (3334-3338) In this part we see that Absolon likes to goes to bars and drink with his friends the barmaids. He also went around flirting with Alisoun and trying to make her kiss him. I don't really think this is the idea of the perfect priest therefore in some way Chaucer could be writing this part to make fun of the Catholic Church and the contradiction being made of the perfect priest. After having read this part I did take it as someone making fun of the Catholic Church in the middle ages which brought a question to my mind. Did Chaucer publish this book during the middle ages? I went into Wikipedia and discovered that he published this book at the end of the 14^th century. Didn't the church do something about the fact that he was making fun of them? Maybe Chaucer was just saying the truth and in this story he was criticizing the church and what its priests really did in the middle ages.

The Knight's Tale Timeline

The Knight’s Tale Ch 3-4: Is Destiny Already Determined?

Is the destiny of a person's life already written? Or is it more a matter of each person writes his own destiny as he goes through life. This is a question that has wondered in my brain ever since I can remember. Probably the first time this question came to mind was when I was taking religion classes to be able to do the first communion. If I had to choose in this exact moment which answer I thought would be the best I would have a hard time but I would say that people come to the world for a specific reason so I think some parts of a person's life are already written. There are many books in which the characters are never influenced by any god of any kind in making decisions. In those books I think that the author would think that each person writes his own future. In The Knight's Tale I would say that the exact opposite happens because the gods have direct interaction with the characters. What made me actually remember this question was the part that said: "Depeynted was the slaughtre of Julius, Of grete Nero, and of Antonius; Al be that thilke tyme they were unborn, Yet was hir deth depeynted ther-biforn By manasynge of Mars, right by figure." (2031-2035) The fact that it is already known that these people that aren't even born have already been associated with Mars, makes me wonder if the life of these persons have already been written. As soon as I read this I stopped the audio and reading for a second and wondered what would be my destiny if it had already been written. I thought about it for like five minutes and realizing that I could go on thinking forever I decided to continue reading in search for other events in which the character's destiny is decided by the gods. This happened again when Arcite won and "Out of the ground a furie infernal sterte, From Pluto sent at requeste of Saturne, For which his hors for fere gan to turne, And leep aside, and foundred as he leep; And er that Arcite may taken keep, He pighte hym on the pomel of his heed, That in the place he lay as he were deed." (2684-2690) The gods in this case determined Arcite's destiny by making him fall and be mortally injured. Shortly after this he died making the gods responsible for his death. In this case the gods destroyed in some way Arcite's destiny because he had already won with his might and sacrifice the battle and Emelye, but the gods not being content with who had won had killed him. In this case and in The Knight's Tale the destiny of each person is already written. But is this the same for our life? Do we write as we go or do we go as it is written?

The Knight’s Tale Ch 1-2: Following The Code

In the medieval times there wasn't a strict set of rules to follow, it was rather being loyal to the catholic church. But on the other hand the knights had a special code of honor that they had to follow. There existed a code of chivalry which was expected that each knight would follow it. A knight in the middle ages had to be very skilled at battle to be able to survive and be great in the middle ages which were usually described as violent. In addition he had to have a chivalrous side which is the soft and gentle side. There were qualities included in that moral code such as the knight has to be brave at all times, courtesy and honor were also key ideas of this code, and the knight had to show gallantry when around women. In the story Theseus is faced with a big problem when the woman says: "To do the dede bodyes vileynye Of alle oure lordes whiche that been yslawe, Hath alle the bodyes on an heep ydrawe, And wol nat suffren hem, by noon assent, Neither to been yburyed nor ybrent, But maketh houndes ete them in despit." (ln 942-947) The honoring of dead bodies is a very important theme because it represents the dignity of the person. If a dead body isn't burned nor buried and it is left to rot or left to be eaten by the hounds then it is a big sign of disrespect. Theseus being such an honorable man accepted these women petitions and went away to take the bodies that were being dishonored and bury them in a honorable way. This event of dishonoring the dead body of a person has also happened in many stories and in the war of troy the same happened. When Hector killed the best friend of Aquilles, Aquilles became so mad he just wanted to kill Hector to revenge the death of his friend. Hector faced Aquilles on a one on one fight and was killed. After this Aquilles tied Hector's body to his cart and moved many miles with the intention of destroying and dishonoring this body. I really think this is an act that shows how inhuman can the human race get to be when it has been blinded by anger. How can a person still be trying to torture the dead body even though it has been killed? This event has happened in many places for example when they find dead corpses that have been disfigured even after the person has lost conscience and will not feel anymore.

Sharing a dream or a common goal with someone can be very nice because it would feel as if you had a companion along the way who is providing you help. The fact that two persons have the same goal can also be negative because it will make these two persons fight over who gets to that goal first and who deserves it more. The same thing happened to Arcite and Palamon when they have the same girl as their desired person to marry. The narrator says: "Thou shalt nat love my lady Emelye, But I wol love hire oonly and namo." (ln 1588-1589) Since they have the same goal in mind they start fighting over who gets to keep the girl. This situation where two people want the same thing and they start fighting is very common and I have seen it happen many times. If the two persons that are fighting don't know each other then they fight nut if they are very close friends for example one will give in and let the other one take over. If they are two very close friends fighting and none of them wants to let go, then the prize or the motivation they have is very big because they don't mind hurting a close person to get the prize.

Gallantry: Courtesy and polite attentiveness to women.

"Migrations" By Dorian Merina: The Voyage Of Goods Or Of People

When I first read the title I imagined that the poem would refer to a whole different thing having to do more with the migration of people rather than goods. This poem begins by Merina saying: "On the boats come the goods that cross the waters. Like veins and blood rushing, the goods cross the waters." In this maxim I could identify four main things which were the boats, the goods, the waters, and the blood. If I started to think about goods then it would make sense because the goods will cross the water in the boats, but the blood didn't make sense in this scenario. When Merina starts saying a very long list full of products and objects in other words the goods I thought that the blood would be the people required to get this goods from one place to the other. Even though it now made sense I still wasn't satisfied with the title which is "Migrations" and if the author had intended this poem to be centered about goods, then the title would have probably been changed to exportations or importations.

As the poem goes on Merina starts to talk about different races like the mulato, negro, and indio. When he said these races something ringed in my head immediately relating that to the ethnic races that were created in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Many of the new ethnic races were created by the combination of Spaniards and indio or Spaniards and negro. The migration Merina could be talking about is people after all. The goods are the culture the people are bringing to the new place they reach, the water is the barrier between the different countries or the different races, the boats are the means of transportation used to cross the waters, and the blood is the effort and the sweat that the people use when they migrate. In the world today there are many cases where the migrations of people have changed the culture. For example the Latin American influences in the southern parts of the US have definitely shaped their culture. The food you find today in places like California, New Mexico, and Florida have been greatly shaped by these migrations. The cultures that these immigrants are taking to the new countries are the goods and the blood that is rushing is the immigrants going in the boats and crossing the waters.