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The Canterbury Tales Characters
Character List
The
Host
or
abard Inn
where the pilgrims to Canterbury
stay
before beginning their journey. He accompanies the
pilgrims on their journey.
It is the
Host who devised the scheme of the tales,
proposing that each tell two tales
on
the way to Canterbury, and he frequently mediates
arguments between pilgrims
and suggests
who shall tell the next story. He has a bit of a
class complex, and can
be seen
regularly toadying up to the upper-class and
higher-status characters.
The Knight
A
noble fighter who served in the Crusades. He
travels with his son, the Squire. The
Knight tells the first tale, a romantic
tale of a love triangle between two knights and
a woman they both love.
The Squire
A
other than Chaucer stated as having
literary ambitions: he can
an
interrupted tale concerning the gifts that a
mysterious knight brings to the court
of T
artary.
The Knight's Yeoman
The Yeoman is the second servant who
travels with the Knight. He does not tell a
tale.
The
Prioress
A delicate,
sentimental woman, the Prioress weeps over any
small tragedy such as
the
death
of
a
mouse.
She
attempts
to
appear
refined,
but
her
refinement
is
superficial. Her tale concerns the
murder of a small child at the hands of Jews who
loathe the child for singing about the
Virgin Mary.
The Second
Nun
The secretary to the
Prioress, the Second Nun tells as her tale the
biography of Saint
Cecilia.
The Monk
A robust
and masculine man, the Monk travels with the
Prioress and Second Nun.
The
Friar (Hubert)
He is an
immoral man concerned largely with profit rather
than turning men away
from sin. His
tale is an attack on the wickedness of
summoners.
The
Merchant
He
is
an
arrogant
man
obsessed
with
profit
margins.
His
story
is
a
comic
tale
concerning an elderly blind man who
takes a young wife who proves
unfaithful.
The
Clerk
The Clerk is a student
at Oxford, and his lack of an actual profession
leaves him
impoverished. Although
educated, his intellectual pursuits have left him
virtually
unemployable. He tells a tale
of the humble Griselde, who marries a man of high
status who cruelly tests her devotion
to him.
The Man of
Law
The
lawyer
tells
a
religiously
inspired
tale
concerning
Constance,
a
woman
who
suffers
a
number
of
tragedies
but
is
at
each
turn
saved
by
her
devotion
to
her
Christian beliefs.
The Franklin
He
travels with the Man of Law. The Franklin is a man
who takes delight in all simple
pleasures,
most
prominently
culinary
ones.
His
story
is
that
of
a
woman
who
promises to have an affair with a man
if he can save her husband.
The Weaver
One of
the five guildsmen who travel with the pilgrims to
Canterbury, the Weaver
does not tell a
tale.
The Dyer
One of the five guildsmen who travel
with the pilgrims to Canterbury, the Dyer does
not tell a tale.
The Carpenter
One
of the five guildsmen who travel with the pilgrims
to Canterbury, he does not
tell a
tale.
The Tapestry-
Maker
One of the five
guildsmen who travel with the pilgrims to
Canterbury, he does not
tell a
tale.
The
Haberdasher
One of the five
guildsmen who travel with the pilgrims to
Canterbury, he does not
tell a
tale.
The Cook
A lewd and vulgar man, the Cook often
engages in violent and contentious
behavior
.
He tells a tale
that appears to be a fabliau. However
,
this tale does not exist in a
completed
form.
The Shipman
He tells the tale of a woman who agrees
to have an affair with a monk who will pay
her so that she can repay a debt to her
husband, but this monk ultimately borrows
this money from the husband
himself.
The
Physician
The Physician
tells a tale about a father who, in order to
protect his daughter from
scoundrels
who contrive to rape her
, murders his
daughter
.
The
Wife of Bath
The most
ostentatious of the travelers, the Wife of Bath
has been married five times
and is
currently searching for another man to marry. The
Wife of Bath is opinionated
and
boisterous, and her tale, which centers around the
question
want?,
The Parson
The
Parson is a man devoted to his congregation,
decent and principled. His tale is
a
long dissertation on the definition of sin and its
various forms.
The
Miller
A large man with an
imposing physique, the Miller is rude and
contemptuous of his
fellow travelers.
His tale is a comic story of a devious student who
contrives to have
an affair with the
wife of a dimwitted
carpenter
.
The
Manciple
Also trained in the
law, the Manciple tells a fable that attributes
the dark appearance
and unpleasant
sound
of crows to the actions of a
white crow who told the god
Phoebus of his wife's
infidelity.
The
Reeve
A slender man with a
fiery temper
, he tells a tale in
response to the Miller's T
ale. His
tale concerns a villainous Miller who
is humiliated by two Oxford students.
The Summoner
The
profession of the summoner is to issue summons for
people to appear in front
of the Church
court, and in this the Summoner is quite
unfair
. He tells a tale in
response
to
the
Friar's
diatribe
against
summoners
that
parodies
the
Friar's
profession.
The
Pardoner
An effeminate and
shamelessly immoral man, the Pardoner is intensely
self-loathing
yet devoted to his task
of defrauding people of their money by making them
believe
that they have sinned and need
to buy pardons. His tale is an allegory about
three
rioters
who
find
death
through
their
avarice.
The
Pardoner
uses
this
tale
as
an
attempt to sell pardons
to the company, but is silenced by the
Host.
The Canon
A mysterious and threatening figure, he
and his Yeoman are not original travelers
with the pilgrims to Canterbury. They
seek out the party when they learn about the
tales that they have been telling. When
the Canon's Yeoman reveals too much about
his master's profession, the Canon
suddenly disappears.
The
Canon's Yeoman
The
assistant
to
the
Canon,
he
speaks
openly
about
his
master's
tricks
as
an
alchemist,
prompting the Canon to leave the pilgrims. The
Yeoman then admits that
he regrets the
deceptions of his master
, and tells a
tale that details the methods of
a
canon's fraud.
Arcite
Theban
knight who is imprisoned in Athens but released on
the intervention of his
friend
Pirithous, he and his friend Palamon both fall in
love with Emelye. He prays to
Mars for
aid in his duel with Palamon for Emelye, and
although he wins the battle, he
suddenly is killed in an earthquake
upon his victory.
Palamon
Theban
knight who is imprisoned in Athens.
Both he and Arcite
fall in
love with
Emelye.
Before the
duel for her hand in marriage, Palamon prays to
Venus, the
goddess of love,
to win Emelye as a wife. Although he loses the
battle, he wins
Emelye as a wife when
Arcite dies.
Emelye
The
sister
of
Hippolyta,
she
is
a
pawn
within
the
struggle
between
Arcite
and
Palamon,
both
who
have
fallen
in
love
with
her
.
Although
she
wishes
to
remain
chaste in honor of
the goddess, Diana, she accepts that she must
marry one of the
two
knights.
Theseus
The King of Athens, he wages war upon
Thebes in response to the injustice of the
Theban king, and imprisons Arcite and
Palamon. He sets the rules and regulations of
their duel for Emelye.
Hippolyta
The
Queen of Scythia, she is the husband of Theseus,
King of Athens, and the sister
of
Emelye.
Pirithous
A prince and childhood friend of
Theseus, he intervenes to have Arcite released
from
prison on the condition that he
never return to Athens.
Lycurgus
The king
of Thrace, he fights with Palamon during his duel
with Arcite.
Emetreus
The king
of India, he fights with Arcite during his duel
with Palamon.
John
An oafish
carpenter
, he is an older man who
marries the much younger Alison. He
foolishly believes Nicholas' prediction
that a second great flood is coming, and hides
in a kneading bucket on his roof in
preparation for it.
Alison
The crafty
wife of John the carpenter
, Alison is
much younger than her husband. She
has
an affair with Nicholas, a boarder who stays with
her and her husband.
Nicholas
An
Oxford
student
who
boards
with
John
and
Alison,
Nicholas
claims
to
study
astronomy. He comes up with the
fantastic fabliau
up most of the plot
of the tale.
Absolon
A
delicate,
courtly
lover
who
pursues
Alison,
he
is
a
skilled
musician
and
an
unabashed romantic. He suffers
humiliation at the hands of Alison, but gets
revenge
on Nicholas.
Symkyn
A
vulgar
, dishonest and foolish
miller
, Symkyn repeatedly cheats his
customers out
of grain. He receives his
comeuppance when two Cambridge students that he
has
cheated seduce his wife and
daughter then steal their grain back from
him.
Aleyn
A Cambridge student who seduces the
miller's daughter
, Molly, when he and
John
stay at the miller's
house.
John (2)
A Cambridge student who seduces the
miller's wife when he and Aleyn stay at the
Miller's house.
Molly
The
daughter of the Miller
, she is a
somewhat unattractive young woman, yet Aleyn
nevertheless seduces her when the two
students stay at the miller's home.
Constance
The
daughter of the Roman emperor
, she is
given to be married to the Sultan of
Syria after he agrees to convert to
Christianity. But when his mother opposes this,
she narrowly escapes an assassination
attempt and ends up in England, where she
marries King Alla. After escaping
treachery once more, Constance is sent back to
Rome. She is a devoted Christian whose
faith aids her throughout all of her
travails.
The
Sultan
The King of Syria, he
agrees to convert to Christianity to marry
Constance, but his
actions infuriate
his mother
, who has him
assassinated.
The
Sultana
Villainous mother of
the Sultan, she refuses to convert from Islam on
the orders of
her son and plots his
assassination.
Dame
Hermengild
The wife of the
Warden of the Northumberland region where
Constance lands in
England, she
converts to Christianity through the influence of
Constance. A devious
knight murders her
in an attempt to frame Constance.
The Warden
The
husband of Dame Hermengild, he watches over the
castle of Northumberland
while King
Alla is at war
. He converts to
Christianity along with his wife.
King Alla
The
English king of Northumberland, he marries
Constance but is separated from
her
because of the machinations of his
mother
, Lady Donegild.