A Final Note

We talked in class about what are good introduction stories out of this text for a Introduction to British Literature Class. If I were going to pick two, I would hands down pick "The Wife of Bath's Tale" and "The Pardoner's Tale".

"The Wife of Bath's Tale" is an ideal story for what someone imagines when thinking of Medieval British Literature, in my opinion. The time and setting of the tale, in the mix of King Arthur and other character fulfills this basic idea of what Medieval Britain represents. There is fantasy, and quest, with a moral lesson that alters the character of a man, and he is impacted by love.  To me, this just fits perfectly in the idea of an introduction class because it meets so many expectations, but at the same time, when comparing it to the "Wife of Bath's Prologue" there are other factors, like gender roles, that someone new to this time period never would have considered.

"The Pardoner's Tale" would be the other one.  To start, I loved it, and it was my favorite tale of the semester. I thought the story was very entertaining, and moved easily. Next, I was really surprised at the connections I made throughout the semester with this tale. When our Magic Class read Grimm's Fairy Tales this semester, I read "Godfather Death".  As I was reading that story, I could help, but feel like in some ways "The Pardoner's Tale" was a foundation for stories that came later. Then I took into account the story of the "Three Brother's" in Harry Potter, and felt like lesson come from these stories was that Death is not scary, but an equalizer. He can't be cheated, and he can't allow the world to be unbalanced. It not scary or evil, but actually the most strict form of fairness. Anyway, I really enjoyed this particular story in The Canterbury Tales, and i think it has a darkness to it that's appealing, but can be relatable to modern text allowing students to see where some ideas might have come from.

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