Thursday, November 21, 2013

Chauntecleer's Fable

"The Nun's Priest's Tale" is more complex than it initially seems. With the stories within a story within a tale there is much to say about faith and trust. In regards to faith it seems that those who do not heed the warnings of their dreams pay for it in the way of severe consequences. Death comes to the man dreams of his death and tells his travel companion. It is a sad lesson learned when travel companion dismisses the dream as any sort of warning and later finds his friend dead in the dung pile. Death also comes to the man who does not heed his friend's dream of their drownings and sets sail to meet this terrible fate. These people who die despite a warning do so because they do not have faith in the dreams.
Additionally, the story of Chauntecleer makes it clear that men should not listen to women, but rather trust in the dream. Of this the priest says, "Wommens conseils ben ful ofte colde; / Wommanes conseil broghte us first to wo, / And made Adam fro Paradis to go" (3256-3258). As Chauntecleer's experience of ignoring a dream and trusting a women reads much like a fable, and sounds somewhat similar to "The Fox and the Crow," I thought this video clip of a fable to be quite relevant. It's short and sweet.

1 comment:

  1. I'm really glad this point got brought up because I didn't feel like we discussed the dreams too much in class. What I found interesting about the tale was how Chauntecleer made a point to argue about the importance of dreams, but then he did not listen to his own guidance.

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