English 623
Seminar in Medieval Literature
October 27, 1975
Irony in “The Miller’s Tale”
By comparison with some of Chaucer’s other stories, “The Miller’s Tale” ¹ is simple and straightforward. There are only four characters, the plot is contrived but logical, and the humor is obvious. But the proceedings, and especially the characterizations, are enriched by irony. Alison is a complex vision of contrasts, and both she and Absalom are studies in ironic action. Double levels of meaning in their depictions add depth and interest to the story and make it an experience richer than a merely ribald romp.
Allison’s dual nature begins to be etched from the very first line of her description: “Fair was thing young wyf, and therewithal / As any wezele hir body gent and smal” (11. 3233-3234). By line 3264, she is “Long as a mast, and upright as a bolt.” Certainly, it is a rare creature who could be as graceful and slender as a weasel, and as formidable as a mast and a crossbow arrow, at the same time. It would take just such a complicated being, though, to “make game” (1. 3259) as she does with her husband and suitors. She is attractive enough, obviously, to be irresistible to her admirers and strong enough to manage the deception and emerge without so much as a reprimand for her shenanigans.
Alison is a study in black and white, both saint and sinner, if you will. She wears an apron (“barnclooth”) “as whit as morne milk” (1. 3236). “Whit was hir smok” (1. 3238), but the embroidery on it and on its collar, “Of col-blak silk” (1. 3240); and “The tapes of hir white voluper” (1. 3241) carry the same black decoration. Chaucer goes one daring step further and gives Alison plucked eyebrows, arched “and blake as any sloo” (1. 3246). She is spiritual enough to do her duty:
Thanne fil it thus, that to the paryssh chirche,
Cristes owene werkes for to wirche,
This goode wyf went on an haliday. (11. 3307-3309)
But does she? Perhaps she is truly devout. Maybe she goes just to keep up appearances. Whichever the case, Chaucer’s irony is clear and powerful, for seventeen lines earlier our black-and-white lady agreed to an illicit rendezvous with her relentless pursuer, Nicholas. He wooed so well “That she hir love hym graunted atte laste” (1. 3290), and she is off to pray with adultery on her mind. Prim and proper is her dress, but tainted her intent.
There is humor in these contrasts, and part of the Miller’s intent in telling the sale is to make the pilgrims laugh. He also means to rankle the Reeve, who counterpart in the tale is Alison’s old husband. But Chaucer’s purpose still goes deeper. Man is naturally a dualistic creature, meaning well and believing in God’s will, in some cases, but sometimes subject to mischief in the pursuit of momentary pleasures. So subtle is the poet’s craft at times, that he makes his point about man’s perverse nature almost subliminally: “Hir forehead shoon as bright as any day / So was it wasshen whan she leet hir work” (11. 3310-3311). So clean a mental aspect, yet how foul a purpose; and circumstances, under Chaucer’s skillful control, take her into still another potentially lewd situation.
“Now was ther of that chirche a parissh clerk, / The which that was ycleped Absolon” (11. 3312-3313). Absalom is a gay blade, a man-about-town who knows every “brewhous” and “taverne” (1. 3334) “Ther any gaylard tappestere was” (1. 3336). In physical aspect and in dress, he is colorful and daring; an amusingly reversed contrast with the young lady he is about to woo, and an incongruous figure in a church. What’s more, while performing his solemn and spiritual duty, he keeps a sharp eye out for attractive female prospects, married or not: “And many a lovely look on hem he caste, / And namely on this carpenteris wyf” (11. 3342-3343).
The stage is set for a merry and mixed-up romp that will end in twin examples of poetic justice. In line 3337-3338, Chaucer sounds the first note of one of those ironies when he says of the lecherous clerk, “. . . he was somdeel squaymous / Of fartyng, and of speche daungerous” (11. 3337-3338). But Alison is not so squeamish about a contrived indiscretion with her first suitor:
And thus lith Alison and Nicholas,
In bisynesse of myrthe and of solas,
Til that the belle of laudes gan to rynge,
And freres in the chauncel gonne synge. (11. 3653-3656)
Chaucer juxtaposes the sacred with the profane, as Alison and Nicholas make love while the monks go about their church duties. The ordered world outside proceeds despite, and concurrent with, unruly deception within…’Life is like that,’ says the poet. And that is neither good nor bad. Chaucer does not moralize. The reader may feel that such behavior is more or less acceptable, but Chaucer sees it simply as part of the Human Comedy, one of life’s true and therefore powerful ironies.
Alison and Nicholas are tangled up with each other when Absalom comes to the carpenter’s window to woo his “trewe love.” He almost sings his lament:
“What do ye, hony-comb, sweete Alisoun,
My faire bryd, my sweete cynamome?
Awaketh, lemman myn, and speketh to me:
Wel litel thynken ye upon my wo,
That for youre love I swete and swete;
I moorne as dooth a lamb after the tete.
Ywis, lemman, I have swich love-longynge,
That lik a turtle trewe is my moornynge.
I may nat eten a moore than a mayde.” (11. 3698-3707)
It is the Song of Solomon. But though it sounds pure and sweet, it comes, of course, out of dissembling and lust. That is ironic enough, but the Biblical tone is followed by contemptuous rejection from Alison: “’Go fro the wyndow, Jakke fool,’ she sayde” (1. 3708). It is irony growing out of both character and situation. We feel that Absalom, for his deception, deserves his rebuke; and yet, we have the feeling that Alison might have accepted him if she weren’t already in an illicit embrace.
The resolution of the complicated proceedings is swift. Absalom has made an ass of himself, so the trick played on him makes deliciously comic sense. Arming Absalom with a hot poker, Chaucer prepares him to become an instrument of poetic justice. But just as the clerk is about to strike, “This Nicholas anon leet fle a fart” (1. 3806). Chaucer thus tweaks Absalom’s “fastidious” nose, giving the tale’s comic twist yet another turn, and at last Absalom is ready with his weapon. Justice is served, as “Nicholas amydde the ers he smoot” (1. 3810).
It is no exaggeration to say that what we have here at the end is a flood of ironies. And that of course is fitting. Nicholas’ literally burning cry, “’Help! water! help, for Goddes herte!’” (1. 3815), rouses the carpenter out of his slumber quite logically, and the old man shouts the two segments of the story together with his “’Allas, now comth Nowelis flood!’” (1. 3818). Thus misunderstanding in the final moments leads ironically to resolution, and out of seemingly endless chaos comes a sort of reconciliation; or at least an acceptance. The crowning irony is that the only innocent character, the sleeping carpenter, is blamed for the entire disturbance while Alison, the prime mover, utterly escapes detection, leaving us partially satisfied, surely perplexed, and perhaps a bit disappointed; having to admit that such is life!
References
¹ Robinson, F.N., e.d. The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, second edition, Houghton Mifflin.