Notes on “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale”
Major elements in the tale:
1. Protagonists: a rooster, Chanticleer, and a hen, Pertelote
2. Antagonist: a fox, Sir Russel
3. Conflicts: person vs. self; person vs. nature
4. POV: third-person limited
5. Setting: a farmyard
Background on the tale:
The tale is an example of a fabliau. Fabliaux were folk tales addressed to an ordinary, middle-class audience. The plots generally involved cuckolding wives and cunning maids. Resolutions typically involved men taming such shrews by either public humiliation or wife-beating.
Why?
Even though Chaucer’s tale of Chanticleer, the hen-pecked rooster, is a good-humored fabliau, the tale deflates the courtly ideals of love by depicting women as fleshly, shrewd and earth-bound.
Notes on “The Pardoner’s Tale”
Major elements in the tale:
1. Protagonists: three young revelers
2. Antagonists: greed and gluttony
3. Conflict: people vs. selves
4. POV: third-person limited
5. Setting: Flanders, Middle Ages
Background on the tale:
“The Pardoner’s Tale” is an exemplum or medieval sermon that contains a moral. A pardoner in the Middle Ages was not a priest but an agent of the Church who traveled from locale to locale hearing confessions. One of his functions was to assess the sincerity of a penitent to determine whether he or she deserved absolution. Chaucer implies that some of these clerics accepted bribes.
Chaucer’s tale differs from modern tales because the plots end with definite conclusions, characters tend to be one-dimensional and stereotypical, and the theme is usually directly stated as a moral lesson.
Why?
To better help you understand the character of the Pardoner, consider the irony Chaucer creates. Notice the disparity between the Pardoner’s description and deeds (beardless, high-pitched voice, “gelding,” sings and preaches in a manner that frightens everyone into buying his pardons at a great price) and words (the moral tale). Chaucer reveals hypocrisy.