my maid of honor speech for my sisters wedding!
14 years ago
Monday, December 1, 2008
January sure is chilly...
As discussed in our first Canterbury Tales presentation today, "The Merchant's Tale", January is depicted as an old bachelor of sixty desperate for a young wife (not yet 18) and even more desperate to prove that his "loins" are still in working order. Inspired by Karolina, Adrianna and Isabel's discussion question, I'd like to continue our thoughts for this post: Who is the greatest villain in this tale? Is the true villain January, a man who cannot wait to do Maius "injury" at his "leisure perfectly"; Maius, a young nymph who plots against her husband, crawls up a tree and lifts her smock for Damien before cleverly outwitting her husband; or Damien, a man who dishonors his knight and "without warning...pulled up the smock" and...well, you know the rest. I guess I'm not as admittedly blunt as the merchant. Consider the relationship between the teller (the merchant) and the tale while pondering this question.
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3 comments:
[Yay--First post!]
Despite my disagreement with Kim, I still hold to my original opinion, that January is the main character at fault in this tale. Clearly, the Merchant wants to think of himself as the lonely knight January, who only wishes to have a woman in his life to be completely faithful to him. And someone who he could exude his "manliness" on. He chose the wrong girl.
May, or Maius, was younger than eighteen. I am not justifying her actions of seeking out a different male companion, but no woman wants to be having sex with an elderly man so many times a day. Damian seemed to be an escape, something new to toy with, and the secrecy was probably thrilling. The two were closer in age, and they saw the world differently than January.
January was being quite hypocritical in terms of his behavior about marriage and women. He spent his entire life, up until that point, in lust and pleasure, and he thought that if he got himself a pretty young wife, he would be killing three birds with one stone--having a faithful "companion", being able to control her, and using marriage as a form of repentance for his past sins. As the Merchant implied January could do no wrong. He thought that a husband could get away with anything and everything with his wife. Because if something goes wrong, what better way to fix one's reputation than to blame things on one's wife, right?
To be quite honest, all three characters were sinful, Damian being no better than May, but January was setting himself up for being cuckolded, and the audience seemed to know it. The Merchant, of course, used this tale to show the evils of women, pulling in examples of well-known females from literature and the Bible, but he overlooked January's villainy (is that the right word?). As a man quite advanced in age, he should have been "preparing his soul" for the afterlife, not taking advantage of the institution of marriage, just as the Wife of Bath had in her own life (she used marriage for money and dominance over the men in her life).
[Take that, Kimmie! n__n]
{Yay--Second Post!}
I have to partially agree with Karolina. January definitely has serious faults in this tale. A sixty year old knight who is obsessed with sex and basically wants a wife to settle down with and have more sex has many faults. Also, I really didnt like the fact that January compared his potential wife to a piece of MEAT!!!! Ahhh, yeah you dont do that. Can you really blame May for wanting to get away from her sex-addict husband.
However, contradicting my own point i just stated: To get away from her sex-obsessed husband, she goes and has more sex! Does that make any sense? From this perspective, May is also at fault. To blatantly committed adultery right in front of her husband's eyes. Kind of a stupid move, even if you husband is blind, why would you have sex with another man right above his head in a tree??? And the fact that Jan miraculously got his site back in time to see the smocks all in dissarray, supports May as the "villain."
We dont really know that much about Damien. However, the fact that he had sex with his lord's wife is pretty bad and villainous.
BEFORE the tree incident happened, however, both May and Damien were extremely loyal to Jan. Does this lessen the intensity of their sinful actions?
many people will probably answer no to that; just putting it out there.
All three were at fault in different ways. I dont think there is one clear cut villain.
I think that January is the “greatest villain” in this tale. He, much like John in the Miller’s Tale, was a jealous old man who tried to tame, for lack of a better word, a much younger wife. Because he is much older, he should be someone who is more knowledgeable. He should know that people, as youth, are very rebellious and a little bit out of control. He must have felt like that when he was younger. He should have realized that May, just like many young people such as Damien, could not be expected to behave the way they should.
Also, January chose to get married because in his earlier life, he was with a good deal of women but now, so he wished to settle on one. It is clear that he feels bad about his past sins and thinks that he will be able to clear them up by marrying someone since marriage was considered to be holy. This, however, is not the way it works; you cannot marry someone and suddenly be pure—duh! :)
January also made a HUGE mistake when he married May who was from a lower social class. Because she was a peasant first, she did not grow up with the same beliefs and values that January did. This proved to be faulty. January was much more refined while May just did not give a crap about what she did. Her incentive for marrying was money, not because she had or will have any feelings for January. As a result, she did not feel as bad for cheating on him; she was selfish in this way. But, you cannot expect someone as young as May to limit herself the way January expected her to. That was asking way too much of her. It is his fault that May acted the way she did because if he had not confined her, she would not have acted the way she did.
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