Canterbury Tales

11 Pages 2685 Words

ents who sleep with his wife and daughter. The cook follows to tell his tale and promises to tell a true story but doesn’t get to finish it. It is short and one can only speculate that it is of the same origin as the Reeve’s and Miller’s tale about sex and sin. The man of law now is called upon and he tells a tale of patience. It deals with a young woman with her faith by her side struggles to over come obstacles. Her faith was strong even after the murder of her husband, the slaying of Christians, the lies of a mother-in-law, being accused of murder, and after recovering from amnesia, she finally is happy. Next comes the Wife of bathe, who is proud of having had five husbands. The Wife, an outspoken champion of her gender against the traditional anti-feminist church, initiates a series of tales about sex, marriage, and nobility. She then goes on to say that she rather have total power over her men and explains that as soon as she does so they seem to die. She goes on to mention that sex organs are for pleasure as well as for procreation. The story she tells is of a knight that raped a maiden and now has to find the answer to what women want the most, in order to save his life. An old hag tells him the answer, he is not killed, and they are wed. Continuing the Wife of bathe’s tale is the Friar. He tells a tale of a blackmailing Summoner who makes a pact with a demon. The Summoner demands from a women his money for a new pan and she curses him to hell, which in return the demon takes him there. The friar goes to say that he hopes all Summoners repent and become good men. The Summoner insulted with the friar’s tale of blasphemy against the church’s order goes on to tell two stories. The first story of Friars being around the ass of the devil in hell. The second of a Friar who, lies about praying, sermon’s a wealthy dying man into giving his wealth to the Friars‘. In return for this the rich man is an...