Analysis of tales of Canterbury Tales

Author Geoffrey Chaucer

Title The Merchant's Tale

Setting and plot in Lombardy lived a noble knight called January that desire to marry, a
beautiful young girl from which he could have a dinasty. Her name was May and when
they get marryed every people was happy exept Damian, a serfs of the palace who loved
May. So he decided to write her a letter and put it into a silk purse. His pain was so great
that it did not show up to work. January decided to visit Damian with May . Damian, in
the most appropriate moment , gave to May the purse with the letter, and after some day
May answered him confessing his love. Damian, after reading the response May return to
work. A day January became blind and he stated to be scared and jealousy, so May could
not do anything without him. For this reason the woman cryied and hiding her love for
Damian. Maggiolina found a way to gave Damian the key of the garden where she used
to walk with her husband. So one day everybody was here but January, blind as he was,
he did not notice anything. May says to Damian to climb the tree for get a pear so May
says to January that she wants eat a pear so he left that May climb the tree because, he
could not do it. So May and Damian consummated their love of the pear tree. At that time
Plutone gave the view to Gennaro, who can see his wife with Damian. Maggiolina invited
him to calm down and made him believe that what he what he saw was not true but that
was the result of a freak of view as it was just returned. The old man thought, and
returned together to the palace.

Description of the characters January was a noble who lived the most part of his life
enjoying material things, but at a certain point taken from melancholy married May a
beautiful young woman who came from a poor family.
The type of narrator The narrator is omniscent and the main narrator is Chaucer and the
second narrator is the Merchant.

Description of the situation and the characters in this novel an important part is
composed by material things, and as in the literature of Chaucer, as in Boccaccio's one we
can found the four forces : here stands the love connecting with the nature, the
intelligence like the actions May and Damian, and the misfortune that it is not random, it
plays an important role and can be favorable or unfavorable as in this case. The love
between Mat and Damian is also determined by the intelligence.
Opinion I think that this story encapsulates the poetry of Boccaccio, similar to Chaucer's
one, and the story denounce the lifestyle of the time, with some referring to the social
status of women as when you January gets jealous of May and deprives her of liberty, and
have a pagan world view .