The Role of Quiting in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales Essay

The Role of Quiting in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales In Chaucer’s, The Canterbury Tales, many characters express the desire to pay back some other pilgrim for their tale. The function of quiting gives us insights into the ways in which Chaucer painted the social fabric of his world. The characters of the Knight, the Miller, and the Reeve, all seem to take part in a tournament of speech. The role of quiting in The Canterbury Tales serves to allow the characters themselves to transcend their own social class, and class-based moral expectations, in order to gain power over people of higher social strata.(Hallissy 41) Throughout each prologue of the first three tales, we can see a clear description of the social rank†¦show more content†¦The Miller says,I have a wyf, pardee, as wel as thow;/Yet nolde I, for the oxen in my plogh/...An housbonde shal nat been inquisityf/Of Goddes pryvetee, nor of his wyf. (I, 3159-64) In these lines, the Miller says that he has a wife, but he stays out of his wife’s business, just as he stays out of God’s business The Miller goes on to say,So he may fynde Goddes foyson there,/Of the remenant nedeth nat enquere. (I, 3165-6) Continuing his thoughts about marriage, the Miller says that he does not meddle in his wife’s affairs just as long as she provides him the conventional things all wives should provide their husbands. The Goddes foyson referred to in line 3165 talks about the sexual duty the wife owes to the husband. This portrayal of marriage is the central way by which the Miller quits the Knight’s Tale. By having to work for money and food, the Miller exists on a very different social level than the Knight. Members of the first estate did not need to work to obtain the essential things like food and shelter. Partly based upon their land-holdings, the nobility had servants under their power who were often attached to a particular building, or specific piece of land. Even though the Miller is a free-man allowed to make his own money and profit, his life is filled with the constant realization that no matter how much money he earned, he could not break into the inner circles of the nobility. This frustration is one