Interpreting Female Agency and Responsibility in The Miller's Tale and The Merchant's Tale

Author / Editor
Parry, Joseph D.

Title
Interpreting Female Agency and Responsibility in The Miller's Tale and The Merchant's Tale

Published
Philological Quarterly 80.2 : 133-67, 2001.

Description
Because Alisoun in MilT and May in MerT are exempted from retribution for their active roles in adultery and deception, readers are invited to ask how women are or are not fully part of the systems by which we conceptualize accountability for actions; how fully integrated women are into the structures of interpretation that allow us to imagine the ends of human actions and stories; how those structures render our own readerly judgments; and how we ultimately discern and judge our own role in making narrative yield meaning.

Chaucer Subjects
Miller and His Tale.
Merchant and His Tale.