Canterbury Tales, Franklin's Tale

A detailed Summary of Canterbury Tales, Franklin's Tale

Throughout the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, participants of the pilgrimage tell stories to entertain one another. These stories, while amusing, tend to have an underlying message, one being the Franklin's Tale. The Franklin's Tale is the most moral tale that has been read. It is not told to make the other pilgrims laugh, rather to explain an extremely important lesson. Throughout life, people say many things that are meant to be taken with a grain of salt and not literally, like "Sure I'll buy you a car....WHEN PIGS FLY!!!" Well, what would happen if one day pigs did fly? Would the promise be honored? Would it even have been considered a promise? The Franklin effectively illustrates the danger of making such statements in a tale about a man who takes a comment, made in jest, literally.

In order to understand the tale, it is necessary to grasp the nature of the Franklin. The Franklin, as described in the Prologue, is "white as a daisy-petal his beard./ A sanguine man, high-coloured and benign." (p. 12). Before the tales of the pilgrims are actually told, Chaucer gives the reader a description of each pilgrim in order to understand the tales from the point of view of each pilgrim. Chaucer

For every other participant of the pilgrimage, Chaucer has some satirical comment about them. Why should the Franklin be any different? There is nothing wrong with the ways of the Franklin except for the fact that he is incredibly pretentious. The Franklin takes his wealth for granted and shows it off to everyone. However, his pompousness should not detract from the story. Although he may by arrogant, he still appears to be incredibly wise and pure. Why does Chaucer speak so highly of the Franklin and spend so much time developing his purity and righteousness? Chaucer uses such eloquent and florid description of the Franklin because he wants to convey to the reader that the Franklin is an honest, wise, and decent man that can be trusted and learned from. In Chaucer's introduction of the Miller, the Miller is represented as a senile old man and then the Miller proceeds to tell a spiteful story. Therefore, concluding that the description of a character directly relates to his tale and its credibility, in his introduction to the Franklin, Chaucer foreshadows, by illustrating the his purity, that the Franklin will have a very powerful and meaningful tale to share with the pilgrims and to the reader.

While Dorigen forgets about the discourse that she had with Aurelius, Aurelius eventually finds a virtuous, young scholar who is able to help him remove the jagged rocks from the coasts of Brittaney. The young scholar is a master illusionist who claims that he is able to make it appear as though the rocks were removed, but for an immense sum of money. Aurelius accepts the costs and demands for the wizard's removal of the rocks immediately. Once the wizard completes his task, Aurelius rushes to Dorigen and reminds her of the promise that she made to him. "You made a promise which you know must stand/ And gave your plighted troth into my hand/ To love me best, you said, as God above/ Knows, though I be unworthy of you love." (P. 425). This excerpt is very crucial in the plot of the story. What Aurelius is saying is that he knows that he ended up catching her in a mistake and although he is ashamed of it, he stills wants Dorigen because he has loved and longed for her for so long. Aurelius makes Dorigen choose what is more important to her: faith to her husband or to herself.

Sometimes says or does a wrongful thing;

Before the Franklin even gets to the principal part of his tale, he sets up a rather interesting predicament. A knight of Brittany weds his queen. The marriage laws stated at that time that the male would be the master of the relationship. However, since his wife is also his queen, therefore she may be considered the dominant one in the marriage. Who should be the master? Since both the queen and the knight conclude that they are both equally dominant, then their marriage shall exist where they are both equal. "'God grant there never be betwixt us twain,/ Through an fault of mine, dispute or strife./ Sir, I will be your true and humble wife,/ Accept my truth of heart, or break, my breast!" (P. 410). The queen is saying to her husband that regardless of what endeavors she may encounter, she will always be faithful to him

Some common words found in the essay are:
Aurelius Aurelius, Prologue Franklin, Franklin Franklin, Finally Franklin, Franklin Love, Franklin Chaucer, PIGS FLY, Naturally Dorigen, Franklin's Tale, Miller Miller, pigs fly, seek revenge slip, seek revenge, reader franklin, revenge slip, queen knight, fidelity husband, 416 dorigen, franklin's tale, impossible task, setting dilemma,

Approximate Word count = 2150
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English