class minutes 12/18

Today we continued with the presentations of the projects.

We begun by finishing the presentation of the Parson and the Plowman. The Parson's tale was not really a tale, but rather a sermon on how to repent for sin. These two characters, along with the knight, were the three that Chaucer most respected. The three characters from the nobility, clergy, and lower middle class/working class represented the way in which real life people in those classes should behave.

After the Parson and the Plowman we did the tale of the Miller. The Miller was a powerful man both physically and socially. His job was at the center of agriculture and he was smart enough to take advantage of that to earn a lot of money. His story was another story of a cheating wife, Alison, who cheated on the carpenter, John. She and Nicholas, the scholar, tricked John and made him look foolish in order for them to be together. The miller told a story embarrassing the carpenter since his rival on the pilgrimage, the Reeve, was also a carpenter and the story was meant to degrade the Reeve.

-Andrew Burke