Parodying The Bible, Love, The Knight’s Tale, The Characters… Can It Not Be A Satire?

What’s it going to be then, eh? (Burgess, A Clockwork Orange) This Miller guy, he is practically satirizing everything in the world, which sort of reminds me of The Crying of Lot 49, in which Thomas Pynchon satirizes everything, to the level that the book is a satire of itself! But back to this tale, this Miller uses his tale to procreate a parody to a variety of articles inside and outside The Canterbury Tales. I guess I’ll start with the Tales before I go into broader terms.

We have this tale, The Miller’s Tale, and The Knight’s Tale which we read before. We could easily argue that each Tale is stereotypical of the personality of its corresponding narrator, where The Knight’s Tale reflects in its plot the Knight’s principled and moral personality, while in The Miller’s Tale, the plot revolves around ribaldry and obscenity, typical in the Miller’s personality. But indifferently from what these two are alike, it is notorious how the Miller parodies much of the thematic from The Knight’s Tale: “A husband must be inquisitive / Of God’s secrets, nor of his wife” (Chaucer, 3163-64). With the mention of “God’s pryvetee” he is satirizing, not only the topic contemplated in The Knight’s Tale about the divine plan that decides fortune, but also recreates an obscene pun where the line also refers to the wife’s secrets, which can be referred to her private parts. Also, he is reversing The Knight’s Tale loyal love, where two brothers fight for the hand of Emelya, and making love’s sense an insignificant one. The Miller not only satirizes on the pretensions of loyalty by portraying Nicholas and Alisoun in a completely detailed manner, but also makes fun of love itself with the scene of Absolon kissing Alisoun’s anus.

We can see that this Tale, hence, satirizes a couple of aspects within these Canterbury Tales, and through these parody, the Miller is able to parody much more wider topics, like The Holy Bible, for example: “This Nicholas immediately let fly a fart / As great as if it had been a thunder-bolt” (Chaucer, 3806-3807). Through this line, the Miller is procreating the scene of a fart, to the historical legend that God sends thunder to planet Earth (must common in Greek Mythology with Zeus), which clearly reflects the parody towards God. Furthermore, we see the Biblical reference of Noah’s ark and adultery as subjects of parody. Then, how can this not be a satire? Perhaps Pynchon read The Miller’s Tale and fell in love with the beauty of satire. Maybe also Voltaire was inspired by this bawdy Miller to write Candide, or Anthony Burgess to start his book. Just in the same way I am inspired by these authors to write this blog entry.

Blaming The Gods Or Humanity?

“Guys, today we will learn about four of the Roman Gods!”

The class seemed bored, though enthusiastic at the teacher’s blissful statement to start talking about these characters they’ve heard in the different excerpts of mythology. They had heard before, and they knew their names had something to do with some of the planets in our Solar System.

“So, who knows the name of the God of agriculture and harvest? Yes, Charlie…”

“Isn’t it Zeus?” asked Charlie, quite confused with this Roman Gods the teacher was asking for. Evidently, Charlie wasn’t the brightest man alive, and everybody in the class, and you my reader, knew that.

“Oh no Charlie, that’s a Greek God! But nice try though, anyone else? You have the word, Joseph,” the teacher gave the word to the student she knew would give her the right answer, because hearing Joseph answering a question was always a pleasure.

“Yes, Ms. Emelye, the God of agriculture and harvest in Roman Mythology is Saturn, who is, as well, father of Venus amongst other Gods.”

“You’re right Joseph! Very well explained! Yes, guys, as Joseph said, Saturn is the God of agriculture and harvest. Now, can anyone beside Joseph tell me who the God of love is?”

Now a girl, Sophie, had the answer in her mind. She was also smart, but, besides Joseph, she didn’t know that much about Medieval literature and Ancient Mythology.

“That should be Venus, Ms. E, she is the goddess of love I think.”

“Hooray! It seems to be that we are experts in Roman Mythology. Now can someone….” Before Ms. Emelye could continue with the next question Joseph interceded.

“She is wrong, Ms. Emelye, Venus cannot possibly be the Goddess of Love, as Sophie said because in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale, her temple is described as ‘the broken sleeps, the cold sighs, the sacred tears, and the lamenting, the fiery strokes of the desiring that love’s servants endure in this life’ (Chaucer, 1920-23), I cannot possibly imagine the Goddess of Love being a symbol of emotional and spiritual foundations of agony. Or do you think its coherent Ms. Emelye?”

Joseph’s speech had left everybody in the classroom speechless. Ms. Emelye had realized that she had in her classroom’s desks a little whiz kid. She took a couple of second, taking a path through memory lane and remembering of The Canterbury Tales she had read in her High School years: “You are right, Joseph, Chaucer portrays Venus as the Goddess of the complete opposite of what should be called love. He portrays the impiety that love can cause, like lust, envy, or adultery. Very good point. Anything else you want to add?”

“Yes, Ms. Emelya, off course. Another God that Chaucer mentions in The Knight’s Tale, the part of the tournament between Palamon and Arcite, is Mars, the God of war. But here, he doesn’t portray him as one that withstands glory, courage, and pure nerve. Instead, his temple is one that represents ‘armed Discontent, Alarm, and fierce Violence (…) a thousand slain, and not killed by the plague, the tyrant, with his prey taken by force’ (Chaucer, 2012-15). Here, Mars is the God of murderer, hypocrisy, disaster, and treachery, not War. Chaucer portrays him as everything that causes violent dangers in humanity.”

The rest of the class was now an audience of the discussion between Ms. Emelya and Joseph. They were both in the same page, as she answered: “That’s very true, Joseph, the Knight in his tale wants to portray the Gods as the causes of misfortune in the human world. He entitles them as the responsible of misfortune, and that the Fortune shift in the world is constantly moving. As well as Diana, the Goddess of Chastity, instead of giving protection of her virginity to Emelya, she act like a force that won’t let things stay the same, therefore incentivizing change in a human’s fate. You could take that tale as a criticism to heavenly deities. Do you get me?”

“Yes, but then, what about Saturn? He is also present in this tale,” Joseph asked curiously.

“Well, he is there to balance things out, all this Fortune changes. He is overturning the fortune of everybody through his actions. For example, he makes the Earth shake so that everybody’s wishes become true.”

Joseph tried to say something, but he stayed quiet. He kept thinking about what the teacher had told him about the criticism to the Gods. He didn’t interpret it that way. Instead, he thinks that the tale means that men cannot life or govern themselves peacefully, and they need of an outer force to settle everything up. Hence, to Chaucer, or the Knight in this case, humanity is wicked and needs of somebody to guide them through “the path that does not stray” (Dante’s Inferno).

Between Love’s Wicked Fortune

In this dream, I was seated around a wheel, which looked more or less like roulette. It kept turning around, and as looked around I saw people around it, as well. They give the impression of being quite different as this wheel turned. My prospect kept focusing at myself, but, am I in this dream? It seemed so, my sight was watching at myself, amongst others. On another edge of the wheel was a man with his couple, I guess, but he didn’t seem as happy all the times. On the other side, a lonesome man looking with hope at the wheel, but wasn’t happy anyways. My other self was rather happy, like if this roulette had just stopped at his chosen number or color. As he was happy, I felt happy, but as the wheel started to spin again, my other self started to feel rather empty, as if his happiness had vanished. Maybe he contemplated the fact that winning the last time was useless if he lost this time.

I heard him say, “Thanked be fortune and hire false wheel / That noon estaat assureth to be weel” (Chaucer, 925-926). As this roulette kept spinning I thought about what my other self had just said. But why? He was gorgeous five seconds ago, when I just arrived. Apparently bliss and agony are not that far apart, and nobody is vetoed from adversity… This lonesome man was now apparently gorgeous, and the man with his couple kissed her and gave her an engagement ring, while my other self weeped in despair, saying, “I nam but deed; there nys no remedye (…) And whan a beest is deed he hath no peyne; / But man after his deeth moot wepe and pleyne” (Chaucer, 1274, 1320-21). His misery was balanced out by the others’ joy, and the other way around. This roulette made some be happy at the expense of others who weep. Good fortune and bad fortune, here, seem connected. This wheel or roulette apparently manipulates this pattern, as if heavenly bodies were playing puppets on humanity.

Then we have death. Men seek death for relief of this bipolarity of fortunes, a refuge for these constant reversals of fortune. But as men die in grief and lament, death is no sure solution for life’s problems. Instead, death is the debt that all men pay. This debt that is pending during the lifetime: the final reversal of fortune… Oops, sorry, I let my mind dominate my speech. As I was telling, this roulette manipulated the delight and gloom of this people at my dream: the couple who had first been sad, then had the man propose to her, and right now, they were arguing about some things I couldn’t quite hear over the bipolarity of my other self’s mourning and glee. Simultaneously, the lonely man had undergone changes of joy and sadness, while my other self was the opposite side of the coin.

'Rumembering', Transforming, Migrating

Such a simple, but complicated phenomenon as migration. We migrate from our homeland to somewhere else looking for an opportunity: we migrate because of choice. We migrate because of an obligation to set the route of our lives a new destiny: we migrate forcefully. But even though migration can be simple to identify and classify into different cause-effect processes, it’s a dilemma that has modified history’s fate by changing, moving, and modifying the peoples that populate the world. Personally, as I travel throughout the world, when I glance at a different culture, I am indirectly taking parts of that culture into my own culture.

Through this poetic film, Merina characterizes this phenomenon of migration through the example of the 17th century trade route between the Phillipines and Mexico known as the Manila Galleon Trade. By taking it, describing it through images, and immersing the reader in the momentum through the voice of the narrator, the video is able to make this simple example and example of a universal dilemma: migration. Through the use of repetition, and listing of words and elements, “the simple chemistry of this / distillation of a kiss / thirst / and a word like rum / and a word like rum / and a word like… / achuete / atole / avocado / balsa / banqueta” (2:15-2:32), Merina is able to mimic the context of the ship, the trade route, the migration of all these objects, if we may call them so. This technique of mimesis reminds me of Saul Bellow’s Seize The Day, in which the author imitates the atmosphere of 1950’s New York and the life of its main character Wilhelm.

But even though the main attraction this poem sets, or at least the first thing we recognize as we hear it, is the mentioning of a handful of objects. Of these, I found quite attracted towards rum, he mentions it a couple of times, actually: “rum is the cane’s sugar water” (1:36-1:38). Rum’s meaning here, or symbolism might refer to the transformation undergone through the process of migration. As people migrate, they change. A similar change that rum undergoes: a metamorphosis from sugar can to liquor. Hence, here, as we travel across the waters from place to place, we are transforming. We are migrating.