Imagery In The Millers Tale

In The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, in “The Millers Tale” and “The Wife of Bath” Chaucer uses the elements of imagery and tone throughout both tales but he uses them as binaries to express a difference in imagery and tone between the two stories.

In The Millers Tale a carpenter has fallen in love with a beautiful young woman, Alison, and questions her faithfulness. “A girdle worse she, barred and stripid, of silk. An apron, too, as white as morning milk about her loins, and full of many a gore; white was her smock, embroidered all before and even behind, her collar round about, of coal-black silk, on both sides, in and out; the strings of the white cap upon her head were, like her collar, black silk worked with thread; her fillet was of wide silk worn full high: And certainly she had a lickerish eye” (Chaucer 87). Here Chaucer’s imagery is shown by how he depicts Alison’s clothes and how he then compares her and her clothing to silk, milk, coal, and

“Grieved was this knight, and sorrowfully he sighed; but there! He could not do as pleased his pride. And at the last he chose that he would wend, and come again upon the twelvemonths end, with such an answer God might purvey; and so he took his leave and went his way” (Chaucer 126). As you can see Chaucer’s approach towards imagery shifts and focuses more on the descriptive text and alliteration that is used by the widow of bath to give a vivid image to the reader. Chaucer’s rhyming schemes also compliments the imagery making it clearer and more fluent.

In “the millers tale” Absalom is furious for Alison tricking him into kissing her arse. “This hapless Absalom, he head that yell, and on his lip, for anger, he did bite; and to himself he said, ‘I will requite!’” (Chaucer 100). Chaucer sets the tone here very clearly by using words like yell, anger, and requite to establish that the mood is tense and