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January 30
 By
Ciara Murphy
Tonight’s class began with Professor Sutherland reminding
the class of a few helpful methods of researching for the essay
topics, followed by the statement that there may possibly be a quiz
in every class from now on in order to encourage more necessary
group discussion. Following these brief announcements there was
an identification quiz covering material from both The Clerk’s
Tale as well as The Merchant’s Tale.
Following the quiz, the class gave some of their opinions on The
Clerk’s Tale that centered on the topic of gender and the
disturbing treatment of women in the tale. We questioned whether
the treatment of Griselda was Chaucer’s attempt to promote
her as the ideal medieval wife, or whether she is a warning that
women should act in the complete opposite manner to her. Professor
Sutherland then provided views on the character of Griselda from
both Boccaccio and Petrarch; Boccaccio says that he would never
advise anyone to act in the manner of this marquis, and Petrarch
states that there is no woman who could compare to Griselda therefore
women should merely focus on emulating her example of feminine constancy
and submit themselves to God with the same courage.
These various opinions of the tale led to some group work where
we were asked to create statements presenting the problem in this
tale and how Chaucer exemplifies this problem rather than providing
a solution. The results from the group discussions were as follows:
GROUP 1: focused on the spiritual and physical aspects of the tale
and how Griselda makes many physical sacrifices such as allowing
her children to be murdered and letting her husband abandon her,
yet she never prays to any higher being. Instead she herself embodies
the spiritual. The question is asked: what kind of spirituality
is upheld in the text? Another suggestion was that concentration
on the body implies a lack of spiritual knowledge (a problem which
is also present in our own culture).
GROUP 2: focused on the idea of every character having a station
in life and their submission to a larger will. They discussed Walter
submitting to the people by marrying Griselda, Griselda promising
submission to Walter because of her own lower station, and the clerk
himself submitting to being a scholar and the stereotypes that he
must then fall under.
GROUP 3: discussed social aspects of the tale and the significant
gap between the positions of the rich and the poor. They thought
that the ability to conduct one’s actions depended greatly
on one’s station in life. For example Griselda acts as a judge
and gives advice while the marquis is away yet she is mute and dumb
while he is there. The parallel to the bible story of Job is introduced,
considering when Walter strips Griselda of everything she remains
faithful to him just as Job did to God.
GROUP 4: continues the theme of biblical parallels suggesting that
Walter can be compared to both God and the Devil. Professor Sutherland
reminds the class that Chaucer himself does not accept this story
and states that the testing goes too far.
GROUP 5: concentrates on the fact that different commentaries of
the tale affect one’s opinion of the ending itself. It is
suggested that the tale might be an indication of the religious
discomfort of this time and the movement from Catholicism to the
pre-Reformation.
GROUP 6: questions Walter’s motives for this testing of Griselda
in the tale and the strange compulsive pleasure Walter takes in
reaffirming these tests. Walter is presented as an arrogant power-addict
who finds power in the freedom of being unmarried and therefore
finds it necessary to somehow continue this power within his marriage
by holding all the say and authority.
The group discussions are concluded, followed by our break, and
upon returning Professor Sutherland proceeds to lecture on The Merchant’s
Tale. She begins by focusing on the character of January and how
the importance of having a young wife, for an old man such as himself,
is mainly as a status symbol. This tale concentrates on the problems
with most wives and the general acceptance of unhappiness within
a marriage. This tale is evidently a direct response to the Clerk’s
tale of Griselda the perfectly faithful wife. There are suggestions
for January’s sudden change of heart towards marriage which
are: that perhaps due to the fact that he is now in old age, sexual
partners for his escapades may be harder to come by, as well as
the fact that a full time nurse would be rather helpful to him.
This tale promotes the biblical importance of marriage, suggesting
that wives are a man’s help comfort and plaything, though
we must find warning in the Genesis story where this ideal is completely
shattered. January has a problem with reading and interpretation
and though he believes the bible promotes him being married he is
like the carpenter in The Miller’s Tale and he is not reading
carefully, but instead conveniently and exclusively for his own
purposes. He deliberately walks blindly into a marriage that is
bound for disaster by calling for a marriage council and then refusing
to listen. This mental blindness towards his marriage is an obvious
foreshadowing of his later physical blindness. This theme of blindness
continues throughout when January cannot figure out that he is being
cuckolded by his young wife, that his beautiful fresh May is hardly
as fresh as he thinks, and that many of the sexual acts he classifies
as harmless between a man and his wife are actually considered sinful
by the Church.
Professor Sutherland now introduces an extremely prevalent theme
in the tale, which is that of garden imagery. Several gardens common
to our knowledge are; the Garden of Eden, the medieval "secret
garden" or enclosed garden, as well as the garden presented
in the Parliament of Fowls wherein Venus is displayed in her veil.
We contrast the allegorical garden of love and pleasure with the
untouched, virginal, secret gardens of the biblical sort. We then
proceed to suggest that January’s garden is a manifestation
of his poor reading since he builds the pleasure garden without
remembering that there are problems associated with desire and pursuits
of the flesh.
Several other points that we discussed are: the story of Persephone
and Diometer and its relation to the garden theme, the "wax
motif" and how since May is a young, and therefore easy to
mould, wife she later takes wax and moulds a copy of the key, as
well as the somewhat misogynist manner that this tale takes on.
Although May is a terrible wife, January’s faults are more
closely scrutinized and also Prosperina is given a fair amount of
speech with which to point out the general faults of men in literature
(such as Solomon). We end on the notion of misconceiving within
this tale, which is not only presented in the form of misunderstandings
between the characters, but also in the fact that it may be the
wrong heir to inherit old January’s fortune!
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