Canterbury Tales - the Merchant's Tale

CANTERBURY TALES

THE MERCHANT'S TALE

SAM TAYLOR

09/03/2005

Chaucer has let January become the character he is partially down to the fact of his age. We know January is highly sexually driven without a doubt. Yet Chaucer leads us to believe that this is down to his personality and character rather than his age being used as a justifiable tool; so what if the man is 60 he still wants to have sex right?

We are told that January has a sexual appetite and regularly feeds with mostly a selection of middle aged women, so when he acquires himself a young and "untouched" girl as a wife we are taken aback. At this point Chaucer casts age into the conundrum and we begin to see just how January thinks and more precisely what he desires.

Justinus and placebo's scene with January for me is more like him talking to himself and there being an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. (This scene is very resemblant of Dr Faustus in which the Good Angel and Evil Angel appear to Faustus.) Placebo is the "devil" and the free thinking conscienceless side of January whilst Justinus is the angel who shows morals and ethics. This is almost an externalization of his mind frame, revealing both halves of his thought.

Chaucer has used this scene well to show us exactly the knight's thoughts. As the characters tell him what they think, inversely it is really what he thinks. (He chooses to ignore Justinus and by listening to Placebo he listens to what he wants and desires.)

The recklessness for January is his great lack of realism. Not only is it portrayed by the way he expects to have a young wife at the age of 60, but by the way he thinks that he "still has it" and that his age has not affected his status with women. This is one of the seven sins that Chaucer uses in all of the Canterbury tales; vanity. This is reinforced by the way he refuses to listen to Justinus.

Although he is a bachelor right unto the point where he meets May and marries her, we have been given little or no real background to his life, his age and his masochistic ways. The total expectation of a "young and fair" wife is surely meant to be interpreted as arrogance. Yet the way January voices his expectation, one casts asides their views of his arrogance and surprisingly adopt one of empathy towards him. The reason this can be done is because the way in which he prays to god for a wife and even remarks,

"True as god is king to take a wife is a glorious thing"

Chaucer has created two sides to the knight, one of blissful ignorance and total arrogance, the other a noble and respectful god fearing Christian; although the latter is the least pronounced of the two.

May the eventual wife of January really stumbles upon the scene and again we are given little background to her and how they presumed to marry. Chaucer has evidently done this to give the impression of May simply marrying January for his wealth; this is furthermore apt when we learn that she is but barely a woman and a virgin at that. For which woman of this status would want to marry a 60 year old man? She only makes an impact upon the reader shortly after their wedding;