Milling the Wife's Bath

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Recommended: Chaucer's depiction of greed in the pardoner's tale

The characters of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are very memorable. Chaucer's prologue introduces several characters. The Pardoner, Miller, and Wife of Bath stand out from the crowd. These characters are all unique in their own way. Chaucer describes the characters in full detail. The physical description he gives for each character actually foreshadows their attitudes, status, and personalities. The characters of The Canterbury Tales are very memorable because their character types can are universal. People like the disgusting miller or deceptive pardoner are still seen to this day. Having married a total of five times, The Wife of Bath is a perfect example of modern day celebrities. The tales each individual character tells reflects their personal views of their current society. The Wife of Bath voices her full opinions in her tale, while the Miller tells his story in extreme detail.

The Miller takes his position in Chaucer's stories very well. A large man that likes to wrestle, the Miller is a loud and boisterous person. "At wrestling, never failed he of the ram. He was a chunky fellow, broad of build." The Miller is obviously a large man. Chaucer also goes into full detail when describing the Miller's wart," And broad it was as if it were a spade. Upon the coping of his nose he had A wart, and thereon stood a tuft of hairs, Red as the bristles in an old sow's ears" Chaucer continues to describe the Miller in full detail. Thus far, the author has nothing good to say about the Miller. After Chaucer is done butchering the Miller's physical appearance, he then proceeds to comment on the Millers character. "He could steal corn and full thrice charge his fees;

And yet he had a thumb of gold, begad." The Miller is a loud, annoyin...

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...in as much as he can. At the end of the Pardoner's story, the greed of the characters gets them killed. From Pardoner's own mouth came his story. The Pardoner says yet again that the root of all evil is the love of money. After finishing the story, the Pardoner proceeds to try and sell his relics. The Pardoner does not understand the moral of his own story. Similar to the greed of his characters, the Pardoner is also greedy.

The Cantubury Tales has many interesting characters and underlying themes. All of the stories the characters tell are perfect representations of who they are. The Wife shows her want for dominance in her tale, while the Miller shows what a disgusting, low class bum he is. The Pardoner shows his lust for money over and over again. These character all have very memorable traits and their stories accurately represent their own personal values.

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