ThatGuy 4th pd BLOG POST - FINAL EXAM POST Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Canterbury Tales: The Miller’s Tale

Introduction:

In the FINAL addition of this blog post series we will take a deep dive into a postmodern lens of “The Miller’s Tale” in the “Canterbury Tales.”

In the Miller’s Tale, Chaucer tells a story of a very awkward love triangle involving lust and revenge for each other. It is a story that describes a wife cheating on her husband with another man, then creating a lie to convince the husband there is a large flood to make him leave the house, as well as yet ANOTHER guy coming along trying to seduce the wife again. According to the Medieval Literary Tradition, these tales are nothing more than moral stories to show a social hierarchy. However, if we put our postmodern glasses on we see the story in a whole new way. In reality, Chaucer is really using Magical Realism and Anti-Convention to mock society in an unrealistic postmodern way.

We see a magical realism approach to Chaucer’s writing in the simple but complex stories that are very obviously fictional. The Miller’s Tale is literally about a guy getting cheated on because they trick him into thinking there is gonna be a second “Noah’s Flood” so he leaves the house to get supplies to prepare. Then with those supplies he basically climbs into a bathtub he hung from his ceiling.

This is like an episode of C’MON MAN

Although this is a very unrealistic story, it is set in a made-up world that seems very real and has the same moral code as the real world. Chaucer uses this MAGICAL REALISM as a way to mock the stupidity of the lower/middle classes by making it seem like he can’t comprehend basic logic and will believe anything he is told. 

Check out one commenter’s definition and explanation of Metafiction/Magical Realism Here

The next characteristic we see through our postmodern glasses is an anti-conventional storytelling technique. Chaucer mocks and attacks the social hierarchy of his time frame by taking the characters and making them super extreme. I mean a lady literally sticks her butt out a window and it gets kissed. Talk about being a lady. Through this time period men were supposed to be virtuous and women were supposed to be ladylike. However, Chaucer criticizes and attacks that by creating these characters that are the exact opposite of the social mandates. I don’t think it was acceptable then or even now to stick you bare butt out the window to be kissed by a dude trying to seduce you… yeah weird.

Conclusion:

Connections:

Now like we already discussed the Canterbury Tales is very obviously a work of the Medieval Literary Tradition - just look at the storytelling and the crude humor. However, we see a new perspective on the stories by looking at it from a postmodernist point of view. We see the MAGICAL REALISM and the ANTI-CONVENTIONAL part of his tales all throughout the Miller’s Tale specifically in order to still get the same point of mocking society across.

The Miller’s Tale also reminds me of the e. e. cummings poem “i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart).” cummings writes a poem with the underlying theme that love is a force that can draw people together no matter how far apart they physically are. However, Chaucer shows the flip side of that with infidelity in a marriage showing that what they had wasn’t true love.

Another connection I made to The Miller’s Tale was to the music video to the song “HUMILITY” by Gorillaz. The music video expresses the concepts of escaping isolation and how maybe isolation isn’t always a bad thing. In the Miller’s Tale the husband feels isolated and alone after his wife cheats on him. Although they are on opposite sides of the spectrum they both deal with the concepts of isolation