Chaucer creates humour Essay Example for Free

Chaucer creates humour Essay The Merchants Tale is only rarely seen as humorous; most often it is noted for its darkness, its unrelieved acidity; it is said to offer a perversion of the courtly code.1 I disagree with this statement made by J. S. P. Tatlock. Chaucer was successful at creating humour within his narratives, which is partly why his works were, and still are, so popular. Humour can be achieved through a variety of elements including plot, characterisation, language, timing and circumstance. Chaucer used of all these, but largely drew upon the satirical portrayals of both the courtly love genre and religion within The Merchants Tale. The tale opens with The Merchant who is envious and astringent of all people that are of a higher class than he; therefore, in his narrative, he targets and satirizes the traditions of the knightly class, including the romantic conventions of courtly love often attributed to the upper classes.  Another of Chaucers tales is The Knights Tale which is about two knights and close friends, Arcite and Palamon, who are imprisoned by Theseus, duke of Athens. Whilst in prison they fall in love with the beautiful sister of Hippolyta, Emily (Emelye). The sense of competition brought about by this love causes them to hate each other. They eventually get let out of prison and fight each other to win the girl.  Arcite wins the battle, but dies before he can claim Emily, so Palamon marries her. The story introduces many typical aspects of knighthood such as courtly love and ethical dilemmas. The Merchants Tale begins with a description of Januarie who is presented, satirically, as A worthy knight. The Merchant however attempts to display to the audience that this knight is not worthy at all. He contrasts him to the knights in The Knights Tale. Theseus was tough, forceful, confident and young but Januarie is portrayed as old and fading, old and hoor. He is also shown as an exception to many knightly virtues, as he folwed al his bodily delit On women, thereas was his apetite. This portrayal of him shows the audience that he is in fact obsessed with women and sex. In the tale he attempts to gain himself a young wife, despite the warnings of his advisors. Chaucer uses the dialogue of the characters to explain to Januarie that a young wife will be difficult to keep happy at his age. He makes Januarie exclaim that She shal nat passe twenty yeer, certain Thanne shoulde I lede my lif in avoutrye,/ And go straight to the devel whan I die. Chaucer portrays him as a character envious of youth, so much so that if he cannot have a young wife he will have no choice but to sin. In other words, he must have a young wife for his own moral safety. This is not the image of a strong and powerful knight like Theseus. Januarie fails in the area of courtly love and ends up having his courtship mocked by the Merchant. This not only creates humour in the audiences eyes as we see how dim-witted Januarie really is, but it also creates sympathy for the character as he cannot help how he is portrayed. Another example of the use of satire is the whole incident with Damien, May and Januarie and the adultery issue. One could argue that May does not love Damien any more than she loves January. He could perhaps just be a suitable alternative for May to love. When she receives a love-letter from Damien, she disposes of it in the toilet (privy) which could show this lack of love for him. Therefore, her motivation for adultery could be seen as an action of revenge, as January assaulted May by marrying her, and not out of affection for Damien. This is satire on the whole theme of courtly love. This feeling of revenge on her part is further demonstrated in the cuckold scene. May deceives January in the garden and we, as the audience, cannot blame her for doing so. January built the garden so that he can have May sexually in the way he wants her. She feigns pregnancy and then steps onto Januarys back to have sex with Damien in the tree. She has been stepped on by January and now she gets to do the same to him. When Januarys sight is restored by the Gods, he rightfully accuses her of adultery. In response she acts impertinent and insulted: This thank have I for I have maad yow see/ Allas, quod she, that evere I was so kinde!'. This creates humour as the audience knows that Chaucer is satirising the idea of courtly love and cannot believe that Januarie is so dense that he believes Mays excuse.

Provocation Through Comedy :: Movie Script Film Creative Writing Essays

Provocation Through Comedy If I were to write a film concerning women and sports, first of all I think I'd make it a comedy. I think sometimes it is easier to convey serious thoughts through a comedy, because the viewer doesn't feel so tangled up in the emotion of drama, leaving them laughing and in a good frame of mind to consider the points being made by the film after they watch the film. I think this idea is much akin to the idea that it is easier to discuss issues and problems of race and gender through a forum like film because a person can identify with an idea being expressed without having to take responsibility for the authorship of the idea. I think that a comedy is more capable of providing a powerful ending because the viewer isn't expecting it. Obviously if I were a screenwriter I would want to write a film that was unique and distinguishable from the other films made about women in sport. This might at first seem difficult, given the proliferation of films made on the subject, but they follow a lot of the same trends. One of these trends is the portrayal of the latent aggression in women that is released through sport. Women are not permitted by society to be aggressive in any area and still maintain their femininity. If I were to write a film I would include this theme and I would try to show that women can be aggressive in many areas. Their aggression can be in something other than sports, for example, business. I think a situation that would show this and also be comical could be perhaps a woman that owns a sports team. Another issue is the fact that all of the women in the films we watched were made to prove their femininity. I don't think that it is necessary to prove that a female athlete must stand up to an accepted level of femininity. There really is no reason to make a female athlete buy new dress shoes or learn to put on lipstick. I really don't think that it is necessary for any woman to prove their femininity whatsoever, especially not in these superficial, commercial ways. So if I were to write a film, she wouldn't go through that trouble. Her power suit could be pants and she wouldn't have to wear makeup.

Pride and Prejudice Essay

Mr Collins proposes to both Elizabeth and Charlotte, but their reactions are very different. What does the behaviour of all three characters, during chapters 19, 20 & 22 tell us about the different attitudes to marriage in the early nineteenth century? In the 19th century, men were rated higher than women in society therefore when it came to marriage, once women were married all of their belongings, earnings and wealth were passed onto their husbands and in return their husbands would take care of them. Men and women back then would very rarely marry for love and happiness but otherwise mainly for money, security and to be higher up in society in some cases. Jane Austin wrote the story ‘Pride and Prejudice’ which deals with some of the most important aspects of adult life in the 19th century and explores the different views of marriage thoroughly throughout the book. Elizabeth Bennet is the second eldest of the five Bennet sisters and plays a vital part in the novel where she believes that marriage should be about love, equality and respect. Her view is that marriage is to be an equal partnership and a meeting of minds. She is a girl of high principles and her marriage would have been one of equality as she quotes â€Å"And if I were determined to get a rich husband, or any husband, I dare say I should adopt it† (volume 1 chapter 6 page 15) which shows her determination that she would not marry for money, but only for true love. Marriage today is seen upon by society as a way to be connected to your ‘other half’ forever due to your undying love for each other. Many people get married by choice of the heart which is similar to the way Elizabeth saw matrimony back in the 19th century. When Mr Collins proposes to Elizabeth she try’s to be nice and reject him in a nice way by saying ‘†Accept my thanks for the compliment you are paying me. I am very sensible of the honour of your proposals, but it is impossible for me to do otherwise than decline them† (volume 1 chapter 19 page 89) though he does not believe that her means what she says when she refuses him. Therefore Elizabeth ends up saying â€Å"I am perfectly serious in my refusal. – You could not make me happy, and I am convinced that I am the last woman in the world who would make you do† (volume 1 chapter 19 page 90) and by saying this she is sticking to her principals of only marrying for love. Even though he can save her and her family financially, she is still prepared to sacrifice financial security for personal feelings and freedom. I do admire Elizabeth for this decision because she told him what she honestly thinks/believes. I believe you should only marry someone if you are deeply in love with them and feel that you want to share your life with them. Also, Elizabeth does not want to make the same mistakes others have made in past marriage; advised by her father as he does not have true feelings for Mrs. Bennet which makes their marriage very unhappy and uncomfortable. This has probably influenced her decision a lot to decline Mr. Collins because she does not want to end up in the same position as her parents. After many attempts of trying to change Elizabeth’s mind, Mrs. Bennett resorts to saying â€Å"You must come and make Lizzy marry Mr Collins, for se vows she will not have him, and if you do not make haste he will change his mind and not have her† (volume 1 chapter 20 page 93) to Mr. Bennet because she desperately is trying to marry all off Elizabeth so that she isn’t her responsibility any more. Elizabeth is also getting older and at that time when they got to a certain age and were not married, they would be seen as not eligible for marriage, i.e. a spinster. On the other hand, Mr. Bennet reduced the situation to a joke by contrasting his opinions of the proposal with that of his wife. He ended the situation by saying â€Å"An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. – Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr Collins, and I will never see you again if you do† (volume 1 chapter 20 page 93) because he understands why Elizabeth does not want to marry Mr. Collins, cares more about his daughters happiness than their wealth and does not want to see her end up regretting her married life like he is. When Mr. Collins is rejected he refuses to abandon his decision to marry. Instead of Elizabeth, he decides to set his sights on Charlotte Lucas and asks her to marry him instead. As soon as Elizabeth found out that her best friend Charlotte was engaged to Mr. Collins, she expressed her surprise by exclaiming â€Å"Engaged to Mr Collins! My dear Charlotte, – impossible!† (volume 1 chapter 22 page 104) because she could not come to terms that Charlotte would be marrying this arrogant man. ‘But Elizabeth had now recollected herself, and making a strong effort for it, was able to assure her with tolerable firmness that the prospect of their relationship was highly grateful to her, and that she wished her all imaginable happiness’ which shows us she was pleased for the couple and shows her support for Charlotte by wishing her well. By doing this Elizabeth demonstrates that she will support others if they believe they will be happy despite not wanting to marry for any other reason than love and happiness herself. The character Mr Collins is a Church of England rector, who inherits Mr Bennet’s estate and his patron is Lady Catherine de Bourgh (Darcy’s aunt). His attitude towards marriage is different to Elizabeth’s as he wants to marry for economical reasons which is clearly shown when he says â€Å"Having now a good house and very sufficient income, he intended to marry; and in seeking a reconciliation with the Longbourn family he had a wife in view, as he meant to choose one of the daughters, if he found them as handsome and amiable as they were represented by common report† (volume 1 chapter 15 page 57). Mr Collins himself is silly, pompous and self-satisfied, though he seems to have a significant role as a potential marriage partner, which is unfortunately let down by his lack of care for anyone but himself. He only wants to secure his place in society by marrying as Lady Catherine will promote him which will then move him into a higher class of people. Mr Collins reasons for wanting to marry one of the Bennet sisters is ‘This was his plan of amends – of atonement – for inheriting their father’s estate; and he though it an excellent one, full of eligibly and suitableness, and excessively generous and disinterested on his own part’ (volume 1 chapter 15 page 57-58) which means as he is inheriting their fathers land, he thinks he can make things better by marrying on of them however despite him thinking this is a very good idea, he is not in love with any of them. Whilst Mr. Collins is in search of a wife; his first choice is Jane, but learning of her likely engagement to Mr. Bingley, he switched his attention to Elizabeth. I believe that this sudden change is consistent with everything we have learnt about Mr. Collins. Although whilst on one had his intentions appeared honourable i.e. he wants to marry one of the sisters in order to re pay them for inheriting their fathers land , the fact that he is willing to marry any of them without loving them, demonstrates his ultimate lack of regard and respect. It also highlights his underlying reason to marry in order to accumulate more wealth and social status. Next, the way Mr. Collins proposed to Elizabeth was excessively formal and consisted entirely of reasons why he should marry. His starts off with mentioning â€Å"Almost as soon as I entered the house I singles you out as the companion of my future life† (volume 1 chapter 19 page 88) which is a complete lie as we all know his first choice was Jane. The order in which he gives his reasons for marrying is interesting too as he mentions he wants to set a good example, how it will make him happy and the fact that Lady Catherine had told him to get; all before he even mentions love! His proposal shows only concern for himself and his standing with Lady Catherine who seems to be the only woman he does care for. Apart from being incredibly long-winded, his speech sounds like a business deal without any suggestion of romance which probably turns Elizabeth off him even more. When Mr. Collins says â€Å"I am therefore by no means discouraged by what you have just said, and shall hope to lead you to the altar ere long† (volume 1 chapter 19 page 89) means he is then dismissive when Elizabeth turns down his proposal assuming that she really means yes, when she is saying no and thinks that all young women react in this way initially when asked for their hand in marriage. Again, this shows us that he is pretty arrogant, doesn’t take Elizabeth seriously – or any other women for that matter and thinks that he will marry Elizabeth in the end despite what she is saying. Amazingly, Mr. Collins is very fast to change mind from Elizabeth to Charlotte which tells us he has no intention of stopping until he is married and he would happily marry a woman who does not love or even like him. He barley knows Charlotte, yet he is willing to spend the rest of his life with her and he will not be grateful that she is his wife but grateful they are married because then he is seen higher in society. Although he may have said he had feelings for Elizabeth, they way he was able to move onto Charlotte so quickly also enhances our thoughts of him being selfish. By doing all of this, he is quickly showing that he only has a heart for himself therefore he will never love any woman or find true love and no woman will ever be able to love him back.

The end of the First World War and the beginning of the Second World War - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 4 Words: 1205 Downloads: 2 Date added: 2019/10/10 Did you like this example? Question 1 The world created between the end of the First World War in 1919 and the beginning of the Second World War in 1939 was one of the economic and social depression as well as one filled with political unpredictability which marked existence of ideologies. In this regard, I totally agree that the interwar period should be remembered as a time of deep political instability and upsetting economic and social vicissitudes that was relentlessly by the prospect of another war. During these era, people were in lookout for fundamental solution to the radical hitches, and many began to believe that the solution could only be found in various ideologies. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "The end of the First World War and the beginning of the Second World War" essay for you Create order This era can be categorized as a period of naà ¯ve idealism that was filled with failed experiments as a consequence of the ideologies. As a result, people started believing in communism, fascism, democracy such as the American promise of democracy and imperialism. As a consequence of these believes, the great depression came to existence due to effect of capitalist economy associated with democracy. In the countries which were relatively strong, their government stepped in to facilitate provision of relief to their citizens which shifted many democratic nations to become socialists. Contrary to this, military took control of the government in the weaker countries seeking to provide security. For the poor, communism seemed to work relatively well as it provided solutions to the prevalent problems they had succumbed to. This was because the core belief of the communism was that wealth was to be shared equally among all the citizens. However, the communism and equal sharing of resources is what the upper class feared the most and thus government that would protect them was formed which was against the communist revolut ion. This gave a rise to fascism. The whole of the â€Å"isms† was as a result of the rise various governments around the world which was opposite of what Wilson had envisioned. As highlighted below, these believes gave rise to what happened in the interwar period. Imperialism In the interwar period, various countries adopted the ideology of imperialism. Nationalism was the main concept that acted as a motive mostly for European countries to begin the imperialism. Essentially, imperialism existed in three forms; colonies, protectorates and sphere of influence. The main goal of the imperialism was to expand and extend powers of a country and influence through diplomacy and the military force. As a result, these brought about the effects of political instabilities that escalated the beginning of the Second World War. Nevertheless, imperialism had positive effects as the colonies created in African had access to improved education and sanitation. American and the Promise of Democracy The promise of democracy was anticipated by president Wilson with his vision of a peaceful world filled with self-determined and governments that practiced democracies. Not only in United States, people all over the world were fighting for their right to participate in decisions made by the government. However, democracy and capitalist economy were to blame the economic consequences that resulted. This economic consequences led to great depression. In essence, it can be seen that democracy and capitalist espoused economic theory that exacerbated the occurrence of the Great Depression. Communism and Fascism These are two main ideology that came to live during the interwar period. Essentially, the ideology of communism revolved around the aspect of equal sharing of resources among the citizens. Communism carried with some theoretical beneficial ideas which included, equal treatment of people whereby every person was treated equally regardless of their financial standing and education, every citizen was entitled to a job as well as it created an internally stable economic system. However, the rich could not withstand the ideology behind communism. As a result, they came up with an ideology that opposed communism-Fascism. The ideal nature of fascism was that it operated as antidemocratic, anti-Marxist and it was racist. However though, fascism would prioritize the welfare of the society, led to speedy decision making process as well as promoted social economic equality. The Great Depression The interwar period is also associated with the great depression. The great depression show the beginning of the economic crisis that was encapsulated with low business activity which begun with the stock market crash in 1929. This economic crisis is believed to have been brought about by the capital economic linked with the democracy. In conclusion, the highlighted and diverging ideas among the countries mostly in Europe caused the interwar period to be one that contained various economic crisis, political instability which consequently resulted to eruption of the Second World War Question 2 The Second World War begun in September 1939 when both France and Britain declared war to Germany following the invasion of Poland by Germany. The cause of the Second World War was brought by many aspects that revolved around the interwar period.   However, this aspects were brought about by the fact that Germany refused to sign the outcome of the treaty of versatile. Various ideology that existed during the interwar period caused Germany to continue with their style of expanding Germany territorial land failing to honor the treaty of versatile. In this regard, I disagree with the statement that the origin of the Second World War cannot be explained by the failures of the treaty of versatile. This is because, the cause of the war was much revolving around the terms highlighted in the treaty. To begin with, France and Britain declared war with Germany due to the German’s desire to use aggressive war to turn Germany from a regional power to become a global superpower. This was also the cause of the First World WAR. The versatile treaty main purpose was to control Germany from such kind of acts after the First World War. Generally, the terms of the versatile treaties were; War guilt clause that needed Germany to accept the blame of commencing the First World War. Territorial Clause which indicated that some land would be taken away from Germany. Disarmament that allowed Germany to have only small army and six naval ships with no tanks and submarines. Reparations whereby Germany would pay 6600 million pounds to pay for the damage caused by the war. Germany were unhappy with this and they declined the treaty claiming that it was too harsh. What followed in the interwar era saw Germany through the governance of Adolph Hitler breaking the treaty of versatile when he begun re-arming themselves. Consequently, the Prime Minister of Britain Neville Chamberlain believed that Germans had totally undergone of the limits in relation to the versatile treaty and as a result there was Munich agreement of September 1938 which Germany went further to disagree with it as they continued to expand their territorial boundaries with an aim of creating the Germany Empire. This caused both the France and Britain to feel betrayal and they formed what was called the League of Nations. However, the League of Nations was not effective in preventing Germany from accomplishing their plans. As a result, France and Britain declared war on Germany after it invaded Poland and this commenced the Second World War. In this regard, all the events that caused the o utbreak of this war were linked with failure of Germany to honor the Treaty of Versatile.