The Miller's Tale (which everyone agrees is much funnier than the Reeve's Tale-- sorry steve)

GENERAL PROLOGUE:
Description of the miller:
-Name: Robin
-Broad
-Strong
--“At wrestling, never failed of the ram. / He was a chunky fellow, broad of build; / He’d heave a door from hinges if he willed, / Or break it through, by running, with his head.”
-Boastful about his strength
-Red, bushy beard
-Wart on the end of his nose with a tuft of red hairs sticking out
-Big nostrils
-Large mouth
-Jester and liked telling tavern stories which were not so clean
-Job as a miller was an example of a lower class person with a lot of power: everyone has to go to a miller – he could charge what he wanted
-“thumb of gold” – put his thumb on the scale to gyp his customers
-Good at playing the bagpipe – played it while the pilgrims rode out of town
-He can be vulgar and crude because everyone needs him – has a lot of freedom, at the same time he seems like a fun guy to be around

MILLER’S PROLOGUE
-Everyone agrees the knight told a very noble tale when he finishes
-The host wants the monk to go next – could be because he would be one of the next in the hierarchy
-The miller is drunk and insists that he can tell a tale that is as noble as the knights and that will “quite” or the knight’s tale
-To “quite” someone is to mock them in a satirical way
--In the Middle Ages to “quite” was to match their blow in jousting The miller is so drunk he is falling off his horse and the host tries to quiet him but the miller insists that he will not wait
-“‘Now by God’s soul,’ cried he, ‘that will not I!’ / For I will speak, or else I’ll go my way.’ / Our host replied: ‘Tell on, then, till doomsday! / You are a fool, your wit is overcome.’”
-Miller uses his intoxication as an excuse for whatever he may say
-He is going to tell the tale of a carpenter and his wife who makes him a cuckold
-The miller and the reeve have some beef and the reeve who is a carpenter gets offended
-Millers says that the reeve is unmarried so he can’t be a cuckold
-He also says that to every thousand good wives there is only one bad one
-The miller says that he is married and will believe his wife is not cheating on him because a husband must not be too curious
-Chaucer then prefaces the tale with a disclaimer: the only reason why he is telling this vulgar tale is because he MUST BE accurate in depicting the pilgrimage!!
--“I think I’ll here re-tell it, if I may. / And therefore, every gentle soul, I pray / That for God’s love you’ll hold not what I say / Evilly meant, but that I must rehearse, / All of their tales, the better and the worse, / Or else prove false to some of my design. / Therefore, who likes not this, let him, in fine, / Turn over page and choose another tale” <--Turn the page if you don’t want to hear what this churl has to say
--“Be then advised, and hold me free from blame; / Men should not be too serious at a game.”




THE TALE
Summary:
Characters:
-John the carpenter: jealous, uneducated, not too bright in general (dig at the reeve), much older than his wife…
-Alison: young, very attractive, could be the wife of a yeoman or mistress of a lord
-Nicholas: a student who is living with the couple – common in those days, good with the ladies, well-educated, likes astrology
-Absolon: jolly guy, very into the whole “courtly love” thing
Plot:
-One day Nicholas makes a pass at Alison – at first she rejects him, but then says she will be with him only if she can ever meet with him safely
-On her way home, Alison bumps into Absolon who falls madly in love with her
-Meanwhile, Nicholas has devised a brilliant plan so he can be with Alison!
--He stays in his room for many days
the carpenter finally comes to him to ask what is wrong
--Nicholas tells him that his astrological findings indicate that there will be a flood of the same magnitude of the one in the Bible with Noah.
--Nicholas tells John to get tubs for them to hang from the rafters
--When everything is prepared, John, Alison, and Nicholas each get into their own individual tub hanging from the ceiling – Nichoas convinced John that he and his wife needed to be in separate tubs to ensure that they do not have sex and therefore engage in the “carnal sin”
--Soon after they all climb in, John falls asleep…
-Alison and Nicholas creep down from the tubs and sneak off to do the dirty-dirty
-While Alison and Nicholas are in bed, Absalon comes to the window and tries to woo her
-She says go away
-He says he won’t unless she lets him kiss her
-So in the dark of the night she sticks her butt out the window and he kisses it – not realizing his mistake
-He soon does recognize what he did and is angry and disgusted. He feels humiliated and attempts to clean out his mouth with everything from sand and dust to woodchips and straw
-He vows his revenge
-Absolon runs into a smith named Dan Jarvis
-He convinces Jarvis to lend him the red-hot coulter
-Absalon returns to Alison’s window and says he’ll give her a ring for one more kiss
-Nicholas, who was up to “take a piss” goes to the window and sticks his butt out to be kissed and farts right in Absolon’s face
-Absolon then takes the hot poker and brands Nicholas’s butt
-Nicholas, in pain, cries out for water!
-The carpenter, thinking the flood has come, cuts the rope of his tub and comes crashing through the floor and breaks his arm
-The whole town comes to see what has happened
-Nicholas and Alison tell them that John had thought there was going to be a big flood and bought the tubs – everyone laughs at John and calls him crazy
-AND THAT’S THE END!

ANALYSIS:
-For someone so drunk (falling off his horse) the tale is very well told – he may be faking it for comic effect
-For someone so down-to-earth, the miller proves to be very intelligent
--His narrative style is masterly in his realism, economy, and control, especially in the humorous parts
--The miller is educated: he scoff’s at the carpenter’s ignorance of Cato, and can describe Nicholas’s astrological tools and activities
--The miller can play the bagpipes and there are allusions to music in the tale which have sexual connotations (ex. Nicholas’s “instruments”)
-Nicholas is cynical, unscrupulous, and blasphemous but Alison still chooses him
-The audience is still supposed to like him though – he is a more appropriate partner for Alison than John
-Absolon is described as attractive and musically talented but to Alison and the audience, he appears ridiculous – direct mockery of “courtly love” which was glorified in the Knight’s Tale
-Tale is a fabliau: bawdy, comic tale usually concerning cuckolded husbands but follows the structure of the Knight’s Tale
-Senex amans: deals with a man married to a much younger woman – a relationship which generally does not work out well
-Tale is a direct contrast to the Knight’s Tale
--With Absolon there is a mockery of courtly love and in the Miller’s tale it loses all its dignity
--The rival suitors are ill-matched in the Miller’s tale – Nicholas is obviously favored by Alison whereas the battling knights were relatively equal in the Knight’s Tale
--Downfall of conquering hero is made comical with the branding by the coulter
--The Knight tends to move narration towards a moral – the miller ironically copies this but mocks the virtues the Knight heralded: the punishments give a very different moral
---John – faithful and devoted, is made a cuckold and said to be crazy
---Absolon – ridiculous example of courtly love receives only one vulgar kiss for his efforts
---Nicholas – only gets punished by being branded for trying the same trick twice
---Alison gets off untainted because she is consistenly cunning
---The miller prizes the characters who are the most shrewd rather than those who are sentimental or obey traditional standards of behavior
-The Miller proves there is no way to determine which tale is the “best” – his is just as masterful storytelling but in a completely different tone which is no better or worse than the Knight’s
-Finally, everyone would have enjoyed this tale, it’s fun!


P.S. I don't think the bullets I had in my outline copy and pasted well onto this post so hopefully you all can still understand it. And if not...too bad! JUST KIDDING (DON'T WORRY CHRISTINE YOU WON'T HAVE TO DO ANY WORK JUST POST/ASK ME QUESTIONS AND I'LL EXPLAIN)

Love, Kate