The Canterbury Tales: The Clerk's Tale Themes

Who wears the pants? That's a question that comes up lots of times in The Canterbury Tales. In "The Clerk's Tale," it's totally the husband, which brings up a whole boatload of other questions...

"I'm not your toy," says La Roux, but unfortunately, this song came about 600 years too late for our heroine Grisilde.Grisilde is the ultimate figure of passive obedience in her absolute submission...

There's a good way to figure out how virtue is defined in the "Clerk's Tale": just look at how Grisilde is described. Grisilde is the bee's knees. She's got a hard-working nature, she rejects luxur...

"Anything you want, you got it": that's pretty much how things roll in the world of "The Clerk's Tale," at least if we're talking about loyalty to your lord. As Walter and other characters in the t...

So, what is marriage, anyway?That's a question you might start asking yourself after you give "The Clerk's Tale" a go, since this is a story that's all about figuring out the proper relationship be...

So, we've got a marriage here between a nobleman and a peasant girl. While we're pretty sure that, ahem, relations happened between these two categories of people all the time way back when, we're...

Family: can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. If you're Walter, this is.So, what can actually get handed down in families? Genes? Clothes? Grandma's recipe for potato chip casserole? How abo...

If you think about it, "The Clerk's Tale" is one long story about a dude's continuous failure to fulfill his duty. At first, Walter seems to think that he's pretty much duty-free, but he's supposed...