"The Millers Tale" essay

             Eighteen-year-old Alison is one of the main characters in "The Miller's Tale". She is married by arrangement to a much older man, a carpenter named John. Alison's youth is displayed in her appearance and actions. She feels she is too young to be married to an older man and should be out having fun and enjoying her life. This causes her to be carefree and to present herself to other men in ways inappropriate coming from a married woman. Geoffrey Chaucer describes her in the way of nature. The actions produced by Alison in "The Millers Tale" portrays her as an immature youth who is not adult enough to be involved in any relationship, let alone a marriage, although the way that Geoffrey Chaucer describes her with nature is to be an innocent bystander in all that is going on around her.
             In "The Millers Tale" Chaucer refers to Alison as many forms of nature. Nature possibly represents the innocents that she wants to portray. Alison is considered to be a newly budded young pear tree signifying her youthful vibrancy and causing men to consider her desirable. "She was a primerole, a piggesnye, for any lord to leggen in his bedde," (ln 160) tells us to have pity on her because she is young and should not be married to such an old man. She is a rose at its full bloom, and by being married so young to this much older man makes it seem that she loses this full bloom. He also defines her joyous singing as a swallow sitting on a shed singing it's hearts desire. This says that she has no cares in the world and she feels free in her youth to do what she wants to do. By saying "Winsing she was as is a joly colt" ( ln 155) shows is her immature, high-spirited excitement for life.
             Alison's husband considers her to be delicate and rarely lets her out on her own in fear that other men will go after her. When she does end up going to town she shows off her petit fram...

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