Nancy Perdomo's response # 4

The Miller's Tale

“The Miller's Tale” is as raucous and bawdy and rough as its teller. Chaucer describes him as a “great stout fellow big in brawn and bone” on whose nose grows a large wart complete with “a tuft of hair red as the bristles in an old sow's ear” (17-18). He is as well known to his fellow travelers for his swearing and dirty stories as he is for stealing from his clients. The miller's story is a hilarious fabliaux about an aging carpenter, his young and nubile wife, and two young men who go to ridiculous lengths to bed her. The miller's antic sense of humor is evidenced by double entendres ( Absalon “censes” all the parish women), crude puns (Alison is “truly poked”), and a proliferation of bottoms hanging out of windows. While it easy to see how the miller and his tale complement each other, it is somewhat more difficult to glean the Augustine interpretation that was almost a prerequisite in medieval literature. Several explanations come to mind, but none are totally satisfactory. Absalon, with his beautiful hair and his propensity for womanizing could suggest the Absalom of the Bible, and indeed several critics have made just such a case. But the Absalom of the Bible has far deeper problems (betrayal of father and county) and ends up dying a rather spectacular death. Chaucer's Absalon lacks the resolution to fight for anything except his wounded pride and actually comes out the winner in his dealings with Nicholas. Another possibility can be found in the miller's frequent exhortations that “one shouldn't be too inquisitive in life” (88). The carpenter's curiosity to know “God's plan” leads him to the disastrous night in the barrel, and there is a Tower of Babel aspect to the chaotic ending of the story. Yet this too, is an incomplete explanation. This leads me to wonder if the message of the story could be that for the totally godless there is no final victory, and ultimately no real hope. I see these people as godless rather than as evil. They have no true belief in anything. They do not seem to follow any moral or ethical code. None of them is a clear victor in the end, nor is any the clear loser. No one seems to learn anything from his or her misadventures. Sadly, they are what they are, and there is little hope that without some external guidance (from God perhaps) that they will ever improve.

The Pardoner's Tale.

Alas, how comes it that a mortal man, That thou, to thy Creator, Him that wrought thee, That paid His precious blood for thee and bought thee, Art so unnatural and false within?

With these words the pardoner admonishes his audience, insisting that as mortal men they share in the collective guilt of all humanity for the sins of avarice and greed. There is tremendous irony in the speech, for no one in the audience is so unnatural or false as is the pardoner himself. Within this irony lies the connection between the pardoner and his tale, as well as the Augustine meaning of the story. In the General Prologue, Chaucer lets the reader know that we should be on the lookout for the pardoner—“His chin no beard had harboured, nor would harbour…I judge he was a gelding, or a mare” (21). In other words, the pardoner is a eunich, or perhaps a hermaphrodite. This highly unusual or “unnatural” detail stands out like a red flag. Indeed, as the reader later discovers the pardoner's physical deformity is merely the physical manifestation of a far more serious spiritual deficit. Unlike the miller and company, the pardoner and his cast are truly evil. In spite of their knowledge of God and their understanding of the consequences, they are willing to go to any lengths to appease their greed. The pardoner mocks God and mocks his audience as he boasts of his mastery over the “yokels” to whom he preaches and then sells pardons. Little wonder the pilgrims react with outrage when he concludes. The three unrepentant murderers in the tale are bad enough, for they commit crimes against humanity, but their sin pales in comparison to the pardoner's. Chaucer's medieval audience would have immediately recognized the transgression of their fellow pilgrim: the “unnatural” inversion of God's love, a sin which would have earned him a place in the lowest rings of hell.