A Drunk’s Tale

This tale has a unique narrator that differs greatly from the Knight’s epic tone. Told by a drunken Miller who knows of his state, this tale has such an unusual content that it resembles more modern pieces of satire such as Family Guy. Few elements of society escape these pieces’ critiques. One of these many elements was the church who played a great role in that time’s society.

The carpenter: an ignorant and simple man. This can describe most of England’s population at the time. Since the church controlled all information, everyone believed what they were told to believe. Any dissent meant severe punishment or even death. This tale mocks people’s ignorance by making the carpenter, a representative of England’s majority, suffer from this ignorance. Nicholas the astronomer, who has received an education, ultimately achieves all he wishes by using the carpenter’s ignorance against him. Although this Church created ignorance barely appears in the story it can be clearly seen here:

“3454 Men sholde nat knowe of Goddes pryvetee.
3455 Ye, blessed be alwey a lewed man
3456 That noght but oonly his bileve kan!”

Here the carpenter argues strongly against Nicholas’ studies and education. The church probably instilled such believes into him. Still, Nicholas uses these believes further when he talks to him about the flood by making it into a repetition of the biblical one. This reference made such an unbelievable idea plausible in the carpenter’s mind. These two religious elements within the story criticize the Church and its way of manipulating general knowledge. It is true then, that

“3842 And turned al his harm unto a jape.”

since his situation and the conditions that led to it show so much absurdity, they are laughable.

Finally, everyone fooled the carpenter because of his ignorance. His suffering probably showed absurdity to an educated mind at the time, which proves that this story aimed at such an audience. An audience that wouldn’t take the story seriously and that would go beyond the obvious jokes seeing the bold critiques. This critique, at least, daringly defied the systems of the time which remained closed to change for centuries after its publication. Even though this tale went beyond bathroom jokes and humor, we must not take it too seriously since even so it remains a drunk’s tale.