Themes and Motifs in the Canterbury Tales

I know we have gone over several things in attempting to wrap up the tales, but we have yet to discuss all, or at least most, of the themes and motifs we have come across throughout the extent of the tales.

1. Experience and authority
    This particular theme has two sides. First, individuals must know themselves. Second, individuals must know God. In knowing both, people can more easily bring the personal will in line with the will of God.

2. love, lust, and marriage
    We have seen several stories involving one or more of these issues in several different types of tales. The theme of love and lust deals with the physical and the spiritual. When reading these tales, I found it easy to question early on just where the love came from. Was it coming from a spiritual place or a physical, primal place?

3. Age, sovereignty, control
    I think the Wife of Bath summed this one up pretty well.

4. Spirituality versus Intellect
    Both of these compete within particular characters, but we also see this relationship between tales as well. The Prioress's Tale and the Nun's Priest's Tale are fine examples of the latter relationship.

5. Revenge and Complementing
    This is obvious among the pilgrims themselves as they try to out-do each other in the telling of the tales. Even Chaucer does this between Sir Thopas and Melibee.

6. Brotherhood and Fellowship
    I like to think the strongest theme of brotherhood is in the Knight's Tale. It is the perfect example of what not to do: let a woman come in between brothers. It will never have a complete happy ending.

7. Fortune and Control
     Here it is perfect to question how much control we have in our own lives. This is also one of the most prominent ways we see the relationship between Christianity and a pagan belief, at least in stark contrast. Think about the Monk's Tale.

8. Passivity and Activity
     This goes hand-in-hand with fortune and control. Is everything inevitable, or can we change up the plan? Also, we also have to think about the outcomes for these types of characters. Did the passive characters get what they should have? Think about Virginia in the Physician's Tale. How about active characters? Were they always guided by a moral compass? There are several characters that would suggest not.

9. Hierarchy
     Can the hierarchy be subverted? Griselda might be proof that it can.

Motifs
10. Greed

11. Love and Sex Triangles
     Two men end up fighting over the same woman, or a woman ends up "involved" with two men. Think of the Miller's Tale.

12. Appearance versus Reality

13. Ideals
     What a person should be and whether or not he or she lives up to that. Do we see characters living up to what their ideal is, good or bad? Or are there characters that fall short of the mark? 

After getting through the rather tedious, yet interesting, sermon of the Parson (I like to call it a sermon instead of a tale because there is more preaching than plot), Chaucer makes an interesting retraction. I found that Chaucer's intent was ambiguous from the get-go, but this retraction just made it worse. Almost every tale had some kind of moral or the like that the reader should take away from it, but the overall point of the tales is lost. Why give tales that discuss sin and virtue when we don't totally understand why we are reading them?

On a different note, it has been a pleasure having class with all of you. I thoroughly enjoyed the presentations and class discussions. I feel I have learned a great deal from how we all brought our different readings of the tales to the table, so to speak. I had not previously considered a few of the things that came up in our discussions this semester. Having the opportunity to come at things from different angles challenged me to read beyond my own understanding and expectations in order to see things in each tale that I had not seen before. Have a wonderful break and good luck in your future academic ventures.