After resuming vocab, we spent the majority of the hour getting to know the characters populating the peregrination to Thomas a Becket's shrine, ranging from the devout, the gluttonous, the salacious, the generous, and a few people belonging in Dante's circles of hell for their lacking morality. As you may have noted, each character is known as a title/job/relationship (the knight, the pardoner, the wife of Bath), indicating Chaucer's perspective regarding the societal roles. This sets up the eventual character's tale, such as the Wife of Bath's, which will be our first reading. As with each character, the Wife of Bath has her own introductory prologue prior to the start of her tale, which could be subtitled "what women want." Through her own desultory means, the Wife of Bath manages to criticize a fellow traveler, bring in mythological references, and end with having an "old hag" be the centerpiece of the story. You may debate about the justice of the ending regarding the knight (I know I sure do), but it is probably indicative of how knights and other members of the influential classes could get away with anything and still have that "happy ending." I probably foreshadowed a bit too much there regarding the story! Oh, well. Make sure you have read The Wife's Tale for next time. We will over-analyze bits and pieces and skip some of her redundancies/chaff that have nothing to do with the overall plot.
In addition, make sure to bring in a brainstorm of places we can go for our own Canterbury Tale. Thus far, we have been to the Bermuda Triangle, Middle Earth, Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, Alcatraz, Neverland, Hogwarts, Jurassic Park, the Underworld, and Far, Far Away. I think that's it!
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