Did you ever think that you would read a story that involves a hot poker, hanging tubs, and a ton of sensuality? The Miller’s Tale, by Chaucer, is a story filled with many opportunities to interpret the text in a variety of ways. The tale is full of tricks, sex, and a dumb husband. All of these components come together to create a story about a young man and woman playing a trick on the woman’s husband. In the Miller’s Tale written by Chaucer, Chaucer uses symbolism, and imagery in order to demonstrate how simple day-to-day objects can represent much more than what meets the eye.
Geoffrey Chaucer uses symbolism quite well in the Miller’s Tale. Throughout the majority of the tale, one can see many different examples of symbolism. For now, let’s look at the scene in the tale where Nicholas tells his plan to John about hanging the tubs from the ceiling. In the tale, John prepares to make tubs to hang from the ceiling after being told about the flood that is bound to hit. John gets the tubs ready for himself, Nicholas and for Alisoun. John goes to get the tubs to hang from the ceiling, “He gooth and geteth hym a knedyng trogh, And after that a tube and a kymelyn” (lines 3620-21). Both …show more content…
Seeing as though this story is all about sex, it is not too hard to see how the hot poker, which Absolon gets from the blacksmith, represents a phallic symbol of a penis. Throughout the story it’s already been determined that the narrator has feminized Nicholas. So, when Absolon uses a hot poker to seek revenge on Alisoun, it just so happens that he ends up poking Nicholas instead of her. “And he was redy with his iren hoot, and Nicholas amydde the ers he smoot” (lines 3809-3810). In that moment, when Absolon pokes Nicholas in the rear, is a conclusion of the idea of feminization, where Nicholas is playing the female role in a situation where a phallic symbol is