Human Nature and Human Folly in the Merchant's Tale

How effectively does Chaucer depict human nature and human folly in

the Merchant's tale?

"Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today"

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January our main character of this tale shows a resemblance to this

quotation, particularly in how it effects his behavior. What the late

James Dean is trying to tell us simply is that try and make each day

count, and never waste a minute because you could drop down dead. Now

for most this appears to be a little dramatic lets say, but for

January who has already outlived his peers and now sits at a grand age

then it all becomes relevant. With this is mind we can look at how

Chaucer has let January become the character he is partially down to

the fact of his age. We know January is highly sexually driven there

is no argument. Yet Chaucer leaves us believing this is down to his

personality and character, his age is not used as a justifiable tool

to any extent; so what if the man is 60 he still wants to have sex

right, yet our author plays this fact more on the person he is than

his age.

We are told that January does have a sexual appetite and does

regularly feed it mostly with a selection of middle aged women, so

when he requires himself a young and "untouched" girl for a wife we

are taken aback. Now Chaucer throws age into the mix and we begin to

see just how January thinks and more precisely what he desires.

Justinus and placebo's scene with January for me is more like him

talking to himself and there being an angel on one shoulder and a

devil on the other. Placebo is the "devil" and the free thinking no

conscience side of |January whilst Justinus is the angel who shows

conscience and justice. Chaucer has used this scene well to show us

exactly the knight's thoughts. As the characters tell him what they

think, inversely it is really what he thinks; by the way he chooses to

ignore Justinus we know that he throws the proper thinking aside, and

by listening to Placebo he listens to what he wants.and desires.

The folly for January is his great lack of realism. Not only is it

portrayed by the way he expects to have a young wife at the age of 60,

but by the way he thinks that he "still has it" and that his age has

not effected his status with women. This is one of the seven sins that

Chaucer uses in all of the Canterbury tales; VANITY.