Canterbury Tale by Geoffrey

Chaucer

Merchant
Presented by
Masooma Tanveer
Geoffrey Chaucer
• Geoffrey Chaucer, now considered English literary royalty, did not have such
lofty beginnings. He was born into a family of winemakers and merchants
sometime in the 1340s. Chaucer decided to write in the language of the
people medieval English and thus changed the history of literature.
• Among Chaucer's many other works are The Book of the Duchess, 
The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women, and Troilus and Criseyde.
He is seen as crucial in legitimizing the literary use of Middle English when
the dominant literary languages in England were still French and Latin. 
Stanza/Analysis:
• The Merchant outfits himself in fashionable attire, with his multicolored
cloak and his forked beard. He is a member of the new, rising middle class
that Chaucer the author belongs to. Chaucer says that the Merchant hides
being in debt by wearing fancy clothes, but the fact that even Chaucer, a
stranger among the company, knows the Merchant’s financial troubles
indicates that the Merchant does not hide his secrets as well as he thinks
he does.
Poetic devices
• Overview of the stories' tone and written meter. Examples of imagery,
allegory, alliteration, satire, hyperbole, allusion, personification and irony.
Similes and metaphors in The Canterbury Tales.
Theme
• The overall moral message of "The Merchant's Tale" is that everyone gets
their just desserts. May and January married and we pronounced husband
and wife, in reality May was more interested in Damian, who was a squire
of January.
Symbolism:
• The biggest symbols being the names of the characters themselves.
January represents the color white like an old mans hair and beard.
• The pear tree at the end of the story was also representative during the
period in which author Geoffrey was alive.