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Summary and Analysis of The Shipman's Tale
Fragment VII Introduction to the Shipman's Tale: The Host asks the priest to tell a tale, but the Shipman interrupts, insisting that he will tell the next tale. He says that he will not tell a tale of physics or law or philosophy, but rather a more modest story. The Shipman's Tale: A merchant at St. Denis foolishly took a desirable woman for a wife who drained his income by demanding clothes and other fine array to make her appear even more beautiful. Since his wife demanded so many costs, the merchant was forced to take in guests; one of these was a monk. John, a young monk no older than thirty, claimed to be the cousin of this merchant, and when he did stay with them he was quite generous with tips to the servants. Before he was going to make a journey to Bruges, the merchant invited John to visit him and his wife. On the day that the merchant was ready to leave St. Denis, he awoke early and went to his counting-house to balance his books. John was also awake early and went into the garden to pray. The wife went into the garden, worried that something was bothering the monk. He in turn worries about her; he thinks that she did not sleep well, for the merchant kept her up all night in sport. She admits that she has no lust for her husband. John realizes that she is keeping something from him and promises to keep whatever she could tell secret. He admits that he is not a cousin to the merchant. She complains that her husband is stingy and tells that wives want six things: their husbands to be hardy, wise, rich, giving, obedient and good in bed. She tells him that she must pay a debt of one hundred francs to her husband. He agrees to get that sum for her, and the two end the transaction by kissing. The merchant leaves on his journey, advising both his wife and John to be diligent with money while he is gone. Before he leaves, John asks the merchant for one hundred francs so that he can buy cattle. When he gives the wife the one hundred francs, she repays John by engaging in an affair with him. Later, when Dan John and the merchant meet, he tells the merchant that he repaid his debt to him when he gave the wife one hundred francs. The merchant therefore scolds his wife when he gets home, telling her that she must be careful when others give her money to repay debts, for he needs to take accurate measure of who owes her what. The wife realizes the monk's trick, but remains silent. She instead tells the merchant that she is his wife and will repay her debt to him in bed. AnalysisThe overriding concern of the Shipman's Tale is money and its relationship with sex. The story uses terms relating to business and monetary transactions in reference to all of the sexual dealings of this story, and money is found to be virtually interchangeable with sex. The wife agrees to have an affair with Dan John as a business transaction, and she claims at the end that she will repay her debt to her husband in bed. The story never stoops to condemn the wife for her actions by finding them the equivalent of prostitution, but merely constructs the parallels between sex and business as a natural and normative fact. Chaucer illustrates the parallels through a series of double entendres, such as the wife's order to her husband to 'score [her debt] upon my tail,' as well as the rhyme of 'francs' and 'flanks' that illustrates the transaction between the monk and the wife. The Shipman's Tale seems to have the proper qualifications for a fabliau, but the story is instead a light comic anecdote. There is no moment in which the infidelity is revealed, and no character suffers for his behavior. The actions of the tale have a perfect symmetry. The money that changes hands finally returns to the proper source, without the husband knowing the particular circumstances of this interaction. The merchant of this tale is a notable figure in the Canterbury Tales, for he is industrious and concerned with money without resorting to avarice. He is the single entrepreneur of the tales; if he is stingy, as his wife complains, he still does not refuse money when he believes that it will serve a constructive purpose. His admonitions to his wife to be careful with money are not meant as parody; they are simple, instructive maxims. The problems between the merchant and his wife do not stem from any inherent moral defects in either character, but instead from incompatibility. The wife also deviates from the norms of the unfaithful spouse established throughout the other Canterbury Tales. She is not a devious manipulator; her turn to infidelity comes out of what she perceives to be necessity. Her situation generates genuine pathos, for she is trapped in a loveless marriage. Furthermore, she suffers a private humiliation. Her husband does not know that she was unfaithful, but she nevertheless realizes that she has been deceived. The extraordinary sympathy that the Shipman gives to the merchant and his wife softens the satiric remoteness that marks many of the comedic Canterbury Tales. The Shipman's Tale therefore removes the pleasure that most of the tales offer in mocking the characters' fate and replaces it with a more abstract and palatable pleasure in the themes of the tale and the symmetry of the action.
ClassicNote on The Canterbury Tales
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