tracing love

Tracing love through out many stories in Canterbury tales

In the Canterbury tales love plays a rather big role in every ones tale. For example in the merchants’ tale the blind man’s wife was in love with his Paige. In fact she was in love with him so much that she slept with him in a pear tree. In every person’s tale there was a role in which love and duty affected its course. It seems that love is a very persuasive thing in each of these tales.
In the knight’s tales there were these two cousins who were prisoners of war. While there were in prison they caught sight of Emily a beautiful princess. Instantly both cousins fell for her. The gods which watched over them gave them more reason to fight over Emily. The cousins were so in love with Emily that they organized a tournament where they would bring 100 men and fight to the death. One of the cousins won the match and was about to win Emily when a thunder bolt hit his horse and it fell over him making the other winner of Emily. It was their love that brought jealousy and hate towards each other that in the end had them fighting each other.
In every tale there was a balance between right and wrong being determined by what the characters did. There were some cases where their love was so strong that it involved being unfaithful towards their wife or husband. Yet they still found that their love was pure in their eyes. So analyzing these different tales shows a lot of different views on what is right or wrong based on the points of views. In a way you can conclude that if you think its true love you should do the impossible to get to it.
In my opinion I feel that love is not the way to solve certain disputes or anything like that. If you analize every character’s major role it always involved fighting over love which in a way clouds you to making the wise decision towards that. In fact it leaves you making many dreadful mistakes that might come back to you in a different way. It also affects your kinship with your relatives just like in the knight’s tale where the cousins went so far as to fight each other in a death match. Although love takes a major role in these tales its not always the best way to show a moral or lesson.
by Gio