The Nun's Priest's Tale

A detailed Summary of The Nun's Priest's Tale

In the poem, The Nun's Priest's Tale, Geoffrey Chaucer describes the main characters playing roles that they would never take in reality. The story focuses around Chanticleer the rooster, Pertelote his wife or companion, and the fox that tries to kill Pertelote. Each character has their own distinctive personality that they often times use as a tool to get what they want or secretly control a situation. At many times, selfishness overcomes a character, and steps are taken to improve the situation for themselves, rather than the one who has the real problem. In the end, there was not one character that got any advantage or reward out of manipulating a situation.

The first unrealistic character is Chanticleer. In the story, he plays the role of "the man." Normally, the man is in charge of everything. Things must go his way, or things must change. He is in submission to no one. He will not be told what to do, and he will do whatever he wants to do weather it pleases others or not. But we find that, in the story, these descriptions couldn't be any further from Chanticleer's true role and personality.

Chanticleer is a sorry excuse for "the man." In the beginning of the story he is having dreams of terrible things, such a

On the other hand, the fox should not have assumed that the hen was going to believe him when he said he was attracted to her voice. When someone is use to being a threat, especially to those smaller than it, they should not expect any random animal on his menu to believe and go along with his story. What rabbit, hen, or bird would fall for such an obvious trick? The fox didn't try to manipulate the hen once, but two times. The fist time he convinced her to shut her eyes and sing while he snatched her up and started to run away. Then, after she got loose, he tried to tell her that he had no intent of hurting her and didn't mean to hold her so tight in his mouth. So, the fox had enough confidence in himself that he could first, grab the hen by his mouth, and secondly, convince her that he didn't mean to hurt her.

The fox should know that the hen would not fall for this, but obviously, the hen is too stupid and blind to see what is about to happen. The fox is playing it totally cool and relaxed to make Pertelote look like he is really there to be a friend and socialize. Luckily, for the fox, the hen buys it. The hen has now given the fox a certain level of trust that no stranger should get that quick. But Pertelote is so flattered by the fox complimenting her on her voice that she overlooks completely the fact that the fox is trying to catch her for a meal. Pertelote's first mistake was letting herself become susceptible to someone higher

Some common words found in the essay are:
Geoffrey Chaucer, , main characters, didn't mean, fox hen, human bear, hen believe,

Approximate Word count = 983
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English