Analysis on the Millers Tale in the Canterbury tales

Analysis on the Millers Tale in the Canterbury tales

MILLER’S TALE

CHARACTERS: ABSOLOM, ALISON, NICHOLAS, OSWALD

SETTING: OSWALD & ALISON’S HOME

WHAT HAPPENS IN THE STORY?

1) Alison is a pretty young girl and she is married to an old carpenter called Oswald. They live with a handsome and educated young man called Nicholas.
2) Nicholas and Alison soon take an interest in each other behind Oswald’s back.
3) Nicholas tricks Oswald into thinking there’s a flood worse than the Noah’s Ark. He proves it through his astrology work.
4) Nicholas told Oswald that we will all be in separate bath tubs suspended from the roof and when the water has risen you should cut the ropes.
5) Nicholas & Alison have a nice romantic evening with Oswald in the bath tub.
6) But a guy called Absalom calls through the window to Alison asking for another kiss.
7) Alison tells him to get lost but he doesn’t get the message, so Nicholas puts his bare butt out of the window. Absalom kisses it thinking its Alison’s face (it was night time)
8) Absalom after says to himself lady’s don’t have hair on there face, and realises its all a trick.
9) He comes back later with a hot poker stick asks for one last kiss, but burns Nicholas’s butt in instead.
10) Nicholas shouts out water as he needs water for his burns
11) Oswald hears this and thinks that the flood has come and cuts the ropes.
12) Oswald & Nicholas end up injured and the whole town ends up laughing at them.

Alison is a pretty young lady, she’s very sneaky and conniving. She is a backstabber. She was blessed with beauty and brains.