Compare and contrast how the three male characters are...

Compare and contrast how the three male characters are presented to us in The Millers Tale and consider their roles in the Fabliau. The three male characters in Chaucer’s ‘The Millers Tale’ present many of the classic themes in and genre ‘Fabliau’. In English literature there is only a small amount of these tales and half of those are Chaucer’s. While in French literature there are over 300 stories. Nicholas is presented at the start of the ‘tale’ as gentle (hende) shy and therefore trusted and experienced in passionate courtly love, we can tell from his appearance and description that he will be the stereotypical fabliau character who is ‘cunning’ and always ‘makes fun of’ the other more foolish characters. John the carpenter†¦show more content†¦This is a contrast to the seriousness of love in the Knights Tale. It also reminds us that the purpose of courtly love in the end is of a sexual nature. Classic Fabliau targets for jokes are the religious in this case it is John who believes Nicholas’s tale of the ‘flood’ the tale also makes fun of John’s beliefs, gullible ‘fools’ such as John and Absolon who because of their foolishness are punished by Nicholas’s and in a sense Alison’s cunning. John is a good Carpenter; but he is naive in that Nicholas was able to persuade him about the oncoming flood. He is also irrational by thinking that he can keep his young wife contented. His punishment is a broken arm and whilst he was asleep his lodger was making love to his wife. The characters of Nicholas, Absolon and John are all different personalities but their social status is akin to a Fabliau, in the sense that they are realistic and lower / middle class since the target audience for the tale in Chaucer’s time would not have been ‘common’ this is shown by the tales courtly form. But the jokes and themes may have surprised much more upper class people, to which the Miller apologies before he even begins. Many critics have argued that the tale must have been for the bourgeois, indicating that they had a strong appetite for them to be satirized in literature. The tale has no moral to this story, although many things are held up for ridicule Usually an older figure in this case John is cuckoldedShow MoreRelatedExploration of How Males are Presented in Victorian Short Stories733 Words   |  3 PagesExploration of How Males are Presented in Victorian Short Stories Charles Dickens was a prominent author who wrote on the historical eighteenth century issues relevant to the Victorian context. He wrote the following short stories and novels, Captain Murderer, Sikes and Nancy and the Great Expectations. In these stories there are three comparable characters that I am going to compare and contrast. 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