In ChaucerÆs The MillerÆs Tale, we encounter a carpenter named John and his wife Alison. Nicholas is a clerk who becomes a tenant in John and AlisonÆs home. When John must leave town for work, he supplies his room with food and pretends to fall into a trance for days. When a servant breaks into his room, John maintains that he has had a vision that God will send a second flood on the magnitude of the one survived by Noah. John prepares bread kneading tubs so he and Alison and Nicholas can float on the waters when they come. After he falls asleep, Nicholas and Alison amuse each other in a frolicking manner. Absolon comes to the window to woo Alison, but he kisses her rump in his haste. When he comes back, Nicholas puts his rump in the window but is branded with a hot plowshare. He yells ôHelp! Water! Water! Help, for GodÆs herte!ö (Chaucer, p. 138). The MillerÆs Tale is a French fabliau, meant to show that love is often misdirected.
Like many of ChaucerÆs tales, The MillerÆs Tale angers one of the pilgrims on the way to Canterbury, the Reeve, who takes it personally since it exposes the nanve character of the carpenter and the Reeve is a carpenter. In the story, we see that John is gullible and does not understand that women are often fickle in their affections. As such, when the townspeople come running to his house, because of JohnsÆ screaming and commotion over the impending flood, they have a hearty laugh at JohnÆs expense, ôThe folk gan laughen at his fantasye, / Into the roof they kiken and they cape, / And turned all his harm into a jape,ö (Chaucer, p. 138). The townsfolk, mostly clerks, do so because Nicholas and Alison explain that JohnÆs idea of a coming flood was a product of his imagination only.
In The MillerÆs Tale, no one really comes off without some degree of suffering. Alison is not kissed by anyone because of the commotion. Absolon mistakenly kisses AlisonÆs rump. Nich
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