Foreshadowing the Miller's Tale
In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Chaucer the author and Chaucer the pilgrim are both quick to make distinctions between characters and point out shortcomings. Though Chaucer the pilgrim is meeting the group for the first time, his characterizations go beyond simple physical descriptions. Using just twenty-one lines in the General Prologue, the author presents the character of the Miller and offers descriptions that foreshadow the sardonic tone of his tale and the mischievous nature of his protagonist.
Though the descriptions in the beginning of the piece may seem trivial at first glance, the physicality and basic background of the Miller gives us insight as to what motivates his farcical story. We are told "his nosethirles blake were and wyde./A swerd and bokeler bar he by his syde./His mouth as greet was as a greet forneys./He was a janglere and a goliardeys,/And that was moost of synne and harlotries./Wel koude he stelen corn and tollen thries;/And yet he hadde a thombe of gold, pardee" (557-563). If you were to analyze the Miller's succinct description line by line, you would find an abundance of information that would contribute to your reading of "The Miller's Tale." For example, the description of the Miller's "blake" and "wyde" nostrils may cause you to think of him as a disgusting man, but this character trait can also be associated with lechery. Chaucer explicitly illustrates that the Miller is a dishonest man who is accustomed to "stelen corn and tollen thries" (562), but he seems to justify the Miller's actions by alluding to the idea that dishonesty is deeply rooted in the Miller's occupation by referencing the "the thombe of gold" (563); a commodity only honest millers ...
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...Of Goddes pryvetee, nor of his wyf" (3163-64); essentially stating that the only way to avoid cuckoldry is to ignore your wife's affairs, though a lecherous man like the Miller has no business accusing his wife of adultery in the first place.
The Miller is hardly a likeable character. His negative depictions of love and John, the old and supposedly more learned husband, upset a few members of his audience. His tale juxtaposed with "The Knight's Tale" gives the reader valuable insight into the viewpoints of the era. The Knight still believes in honor and love at first sight whereas the Miller resorts to dishonesty every chance he gets. The General Prologue tells us that the Miller is lecherous, dishonest, clever, and eloquent. If you read the General Prologue carefully enough, the outline and themes of "The Miller's Tale" should not surprise you in the least.
Miller presents the character of John Proctor in an important way to show two sides to his character. These qualities make him have the most important role in ‘The Crucible.’ The key events that show him in this way is when the audience find out about the affair, how he tries to defend his wife, his confession in court and his hanging for the sake of others. Through the events in The Crucible, Miller then portrays John Proctor’s character with tension and suspense. This then makes the audience question whether or not he is a good man.
The Miller tells his tale momentarily to amuse and and embarrass (the Reeve and his own cameo appearance), while the Knight tells a story strong on "sentence" or meaning. The two different motives reveal the fundamental differences between the two men: the noble Knight can still believe in a higher beautiful world, while the Miller cannot accept it ever existed.
This whole play by Arthur Miller shows how our community will turn on each other to save ourselves no matter if it’s right or wrong and it’s true in our society today. It also shows how a good man regained his happiness and holiness by standing up for what’s right against the lies and sacrificed himself for the truth.
...ur Miller wrote the Crucible as a response to the McCarthy trials. He was trying to reveal McCarthy's abuse of power, the hysteria he was causing, and hopefully this would stop the terrible happenings in America. Miller twisted in his private life into his play. He was the John Proctor of his time. He displayed what society was like during the McCarthy trials and what needed to be changed.
In “The Pardoner’s Tale,” Geoffrey Chaucer masterfully frames an informal homily. Through the use of verbal and situational irony, Chaucer is able to accentuate the moral characteristics of the Pardoner. The essence of the story is exemplified by the blatant discrepancy between the character of the storyteller and the message of his story. By analyzing this contrast, the reader can place himself in the mind of the Pardoner in order to account for his psychology.
Chaucer's "The Miller's Tale" should be tragic, because a lot of horrible things happen to the characters. The carpenter's wife is disloyal to him, sleeping with others and making fun of him with Nicholas. Also, he is depicted as a fool. However, readers get a humorous feeling from the story, rather than feeling sorry for the carpenter's unfair life. Chaucer makes the whole story come across as comic rather than tragic. This humor is created by the Miller's narration, the use of irony, the cartoon-like characters, and the twists of plot. These elements combine to produce an emotional distance which enhances the comic effect.
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are filled with many entertaining tales from a variety of characters of different social classes and background. The first two tales told, by the knight and the miller, articulate very different perspectives of medieval life. Primarily, The tales of both the knight and the miller bring strikingly different views on the idea of female agency, and as we will discover, Chaucer himself leaves hints that he supports the more involved, independent Alison, over the paper-thin character of Emily.
Miller also puns on the other meaning of 'a crucible' which is: 'a severe test or trial'; to tie in with the events that take pace in the play- the trials of the accused witches and the extent of the consequences (death by hanging.)
The first way Miller illustrates the theme of lies and deceit is through Abigail’s conniving
...mainly to be something characters use and abuse in order to get what they want. Absolon forgoes piety for attention when he takes a role in the local miracle play in hopes of attracting Alisoun. Nicholas uses the Biblical story of Noah and the flood, and a false piety, to set John up so he can frolic with Alisoun undisturbed. And then, of course, there's the whole obscene religious allegory and symbolism in the story: the huge "Goddes pryvetee," or genitals, John hangs from his roof; the fart of thunder and cry of water that could allegorize Noah's flood; and the way in which Nicholas's God-role and John's fall play on the Fall of Man. As is true with love, the only character who seems to truly have faith in this tale (John) suffers for it in the end, appearing highly ridiculous. All of this adds up to a highly irreligious take on religion in "The Miller's Tale."
In the play: The Crucible Miller reveals the effect of the Salem Witch Trials on the people due to their growing fear. Miller shows that fear exasperates man’s innate vices of self-preservation, greed, and hypocrisy. In The Crucible Miller demonstrates these vices through Danforth, a prestigious judge that should represent the peak of human morality and reason.
Few people are willing to stand up to the overwhelming power of authority, especially during a time like the Red scare. Hardly any authors are able to recognize meaningful similarities between the present times and an event that happened many years ago—and write about it effectively. Only one has had the courage and intelligence to do both. Arthur Miller was an American author who wrote plays, essays, and stories and has published works dating from to 1936 through 2004. The Crucible, one of his most famous plays, premiered in New York on January 22, 1953 (InfoTrac). It is a historical-fiction story set in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. The witch hunt described in this play is similar to the Red Scare, an anti-communist movement led by Senator Joseph McCarthy that lasted from the late 1940s to the late 1950s (Broudin). During both time periods, most people respected high authority while a few dissenters challenged conformist views. The public was censored in what they could say because of the fear of being accused of witchcraft or communism. The hysteria of the times triggered a mob-mentality to emerge among the citizens, which influenced nearly everyone to join the terrible movements. Miller presents all of these ideas in The Crucible using his own experiences as influences. He incorporated many of his own traits into the characters’ dispositions. He also described many situations in the play that were similar to the ones he was in, including how he was censored by the Red Scare. Many people will often conform while only a few will challenge authority, will use censorship to prevent others from expressing their views, and are easily affected by hysteria; these characteristics influenced Miller’s life and are reflected by him in Th...
In The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, the stereotypes and roles in society are reexamined and made new through the characters in the book. Chaucer discusses different stereotypes and separates his characters from the social norm by giving them highly ironic and/or unusual characteristics. Specifically, in the stories of The Wife of Bath and The Miller’s Tale, Chaucer examines stereotypes of women and men and attempts to define their basic wants and needs.
Florio, Thomas A., ed. “Miller’s Tales.” The New Yorker. 70 (1994): 35-36. Martin, Robert A., ed., pp.
we see how Chaucer the pilgrim has been swayed and convinced by what the other pilgrims tell him. So much so that he reports qualities that are often the opposite of the true personalities of the characters he is describing. This ambiguity reveals a very clever sort of irony on behalf of the writer - while Chaucer the pilgrim is easily drawn in by their deliberate misrepresentations, it is up to the readers to see how wrong he is and draw their own, more accurate, conclusions. It shows many of the pilgrims to be very different people than those symbolised by the ideal qualities they want others to see.