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The Miller's Tale By Geoffery Chaucer And The Color Purple By Alice Walker

1482 Words6 Pages

Explore the representation of female sexuality in ‘The Miller’s Tale’ by Geoffery Chaucer and ‘The Color Purple’ by Alice Walker The motif of female sexuality in regards to ‘The Color Purple’ by Alice Walker and ‘The Miller’s Tale’ by Geoffery Chaucer is represented in two different ways, and having two contrasting consequences, as explored within the narrative in relation to the context of each work. In Walker’s novel, female sexuality acts as liberating for women, but specifically the main protagonist, Celie. However, in Chaucer’s fabliau (a brief comic tale written in verse) any liberation the main female heroine, Alisoun finds through taking control of her sexuality is ultimately subverted and restricted, treated merely as a moment of madness. ‘The Miller’s Tale’, an instalment in ‘The Canterbury Tales’, has a framed narrative which centres around a Narrator relaying the story of a “lewed” Miller, …show more content…

In this way, female sexuality in ‘The Miller’s Tale’ is represented as only acceptable in the confines of a fantasy land of ‘carnivalesque’ (coined by Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin) madness. This is initially set up through the mediation by Chaucer to place the tale early on, directly after ‘The Knight’s Tale’, which tells a narrative of two imprisoned knights battling for the love of a Princess. It is filled with conventional archetypes of courtly love; a Medieval trope of men pursuing maidens with sweeping decelerations of love and admiration that Chaucer mocks through the characters of Nicholas and Absolon in ‘The Miller’s

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