Chaucer's The Merchant's Tale

             Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Merchant's Tale" from The Canterbury Tales presents a moral derived from the merchant's personality. The moral expresses the merchant's opinion on marriage. Many critics have read this tale and interpreted its meaning in their own way. This modern interpretation of an old tale makes the merchant's character still believable today.
             "The Merchant's Tale" starts out in the town of Lombardy in Pavia. January, a 60-year-old knight who has led a promiscuous life and has never been married decides that it is time he settles down with a wife and share in the joys of marriage. January gathers his friends and tells them about his plan. Most of them approve, including his brother Placebo. January's brother, Justinius, disapproves. He says that she will ruin his life. January ignores Justinius and sets his sites on a young, 20 year-old girl named May. Soon after they get married.
             January's servant Damian has a secret crush on May and reveals it to her in a letter. May too had a crush on Damian and lets him know with a response to his letter. January had a garden that had only one key, only he and May could get into it until May gave the key to Damian and had him make a copy of the key. The plan was for him to sneak into the garden before January and May got there, hide in a tree, and wait for them. January would not know Damian was there because he had lost his sight.
             One day, January and May went into the garden and Damian was already there, waiting. May asked January to boost her into the tree Damian was hiding in so that she could get some fruit. As soon as she gets boosted up there, her and Damian began fooling around. Seeing this, Pluto granted January his sight back so he could catch the two of them in the act. When January discovers them in the tree, Prosperpina gives May an explanation that she can tell January so she wont get i
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Chaucer's The Merchant's Tale. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 01:53, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/78073.html