The Merchant's Prologue and Tale Flashcards
The Merchant’s Tale immediately follows the Clerk’s ideal delineation of Griselda’s patience. In stark contrast, the Merchant’s Tale takes into account the bitter realities of life. The Merchant is cynical, bitter and disillusioned by his two month long marriage. His tale reflects the disgust that he feels with himself for getting married and he heaps scorn on old January’s decision to marry after leading a carefree life as a bachelor.
Structure and Theme
The Merchant’s Tale like the Miller’s tale deals with the gulling of an old husband by a young wife. However one can notice the wide difference between their characters simply by the manner in which they deal with the same subject matter.
Structure and Context
The Merchant’s Tale has often been denounced as a bawdy tale about the deception of a jealous husband. However it is a serious discussion of the problem of marriage.
Theme
A wife is God’s gift since woman was made for man’s help. But the Merchant directs intense scorn towards every favorable opinion regarding marriage. This reflects his own bitterness and unhappy personal experience. In his tale old January is betrayed by his young wife, May, who has an affair with Damian. At the end of the story the reader sees January as a gulled husband, May as a slut and Damian as a traitor. Pluto restores January’s sight and makes him see his wife’s betrayal but Prosperina endows May with the ability to satisfy January with her smart answer.
Theme-Marriage-Context
The point that the Merchant makes is that marital happiness can only be achieved by self-imposed blindness. When January’s sight is restored, he allows himself to be blinded to the true facts. He can see May and Damian locked in an embrace and still lets himself believe that his wife is faithful. The resolution of the plot is thus ironic. The tale could have very well ended in a tragedy but Chaucer makes the conclusion comic. Chaucer allows January to live in a fool’s paradise.
Theme-Marriage-Context
The Merchant says that he has had more than his share of weeping, worrying and mourning in his marital life. He rues the fact that his wife does not have Griselda’s patience. He has only been married for two months but his wretched wife had made his life thoroughly miserable. The Host requests the Merchant to share his sorrow with them. But the Merchant says that his heart was too sore to speak about his own sorrow any more. He says that his tale will be of wives of a different kind.
The Merchant’s Prologue Summary
Theophrastus (Theofraste)
the author of a book on nuptials and sometimes quoted by St. Jerome, the antifeminist.
Rebecca, Judith, Abigail, Esther
biblical women noted for their good advice or actions.
Solomon (Salomon)
the author of the Book of Proverbs
Zion
the land in and around Jerusalem; by Chaucer’s day, it also meant the heavenly city.
Orpheus
a musician who followed his wife, Eurydice, into the underworld and so influenced Hades with the beauty of his playing that he was allowed to take her back to the upper world.
Amphion
He helped rebuild Thebes by playing his music so as to charm the stones into place.
Joab
an officer in David’s army who blew his trumpet so powerfully that David’s enemies fled.
Theodamas
a seer of Thebes who trumpeted loudly after any of his prophecies.
“With the ardor paris showed for helen”
Old January wishes he had the youthful strength of a Paris (who absconded with Helen of Troy) when he gets May in bed.
