This is the third in a series of posts about Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (1390s).
PLOT
Transcendence: A clerk claims he knows God plans to destroy the world by flood.
Hierarchy: The clerk is living with a miller and sleeping with the miller’s young wife. The scholarly clerk (Nicholas) is able to woo the wife more effectively than the local church clerk (Absolon).
Ethics: The clerk says the trio can avoid the fated flood if they hide in a bathtub.
Sanctions: The wife has Absolon kiss her bottom. Absolon returns to punish her, and Nicholas flatulates in his face. Absolon scalds Nicholas with a hot poker. The miller hears the cry and falls from his high-rise tub and breaks his arm.
Succession: The townspeople consider the miller crazy.
QUOTATIONS
Transcendence: “Men sholde nat knowe of Goddes pryvetee.” – Nicholas
Hierarchy: “An housbonde shal nat been inquisityf / Of Goddes pryvetee, nor of his wyf.” – The Miller
Ethics: “For thus seith Salomon, that was ful trewe: / `Werk al by conseil, and thou shalt nat rewe.'” – Nicholas
Sanctions: “With othes grete he was so sworn adoun / That he was holde wood in al the toun…” – The Miller
Succession: “Thus swyved was this carpenteris wyf, / For al his kepyng and his jalousye…” – The Miller
RHETORIC
Transcendence: The narrator provides a warning before the tale: “For Goddes love, demeth nat that I seye / Of yvel entente, but for I moot reherce / Hir tales alle, be they bettre or werse, / Or elles falsen som of my mateere.”
Hierarchy: The Miller drunkenly butts in to tell his tale before the Monk.
Ethics: This tale follows the generic requirements and conventions of the FABLIAU.
Sanctions: The Miller gives the tale no moral.
Succession: The tale makes of a cuckolded miller and will welcome a retort and tale from the Reeve (who is a miller).
SYMBOLS
Transcendence: The promised flood
Hierarchy: The tub
Ethics: The home
Sanctions: The poker
Succession: Alison’s “nether eye” and Nicholas’s scalded bottom
THEME
Transcendence: God’s wisdom is not man’s.
Hierarchy: A man should be careful who his intermediaries are.
Ethics: Count on an immoral character to tell an immoral story.
Sanctions: Neither money (the miller) nor position (the church clerk) can help you avoid cuckolding.
Succession: The feared apocalypse is not coming, but a future of disrespect and spousal unfaithfulness might be worse.
Experiments in Criticism 