stage 3 Recasting Final Draft

The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer, is a social satire on fourteenth century English society. Because of this, many of the social norms depicted in the Tales do not seem to apply to modern day society, thus losing some of its meaning. In order to prevent this, I have chosen to rewrite the Merchant’s tale with a modern setting and modern cast. This essay will discuss the modernization of the Merchant’s tale by delving deeper into the reasoning behind the creation of the Canterbury Tales, the significance of the characters and narrator that Chaucer chose to incorporate into his Tales, and the reasoning behind the modern depictions of the cast and setting that I have chosen to modernize the Tales.
As any who have studied extensively the Canterbury Tales would know, the Canterbury Tales shares a common structure with other works such as the Decameron. The Tales borrows a great deal of ideas such as the back story of traveling people telling tales to pass the time. So why would Chaucer rewrite a story that has already been told? Boccaccio’s The Decameron is a tale written in the early Renaissance. In essence, the Decameron was a social criticism against the church and the general populace. By shedding light to circumstances where clergymen were put in compromising situations or using religion in order to make money or where young wives cheat on their own husbands and were caught in adulterous acts, Boccaccio offers a sharp social commentary on the corruption of the church and speaks against the falling morality of the people. On the other hand, the Canterbury Tales, by Chaucer, is a more humorous sort of satire on the late fourteenth century society that pokes fun at the social stereotypes of its times as well as teaching moral lessons about life. These lessons range from warning men to never marry young beautiful wives for they will always cheat, as seen in the Merchant’s and Miller’s tales, to the lesson that greed will lead you to ruin, as seen in the Pardoner’s tale.
As the years have passed since Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales, many social norms and morals have changed. Because of this change, many things that may have been important during Chaucer’s time become less applicable in the modern era. Knights marrying young maidens were a social possibility in the original Canterbury Tales, but for modern times, such topics become obsolete and improbable. The merchant’s tale in the Canterbury Tales is such a tale about the marriage of a knight and a young woman. The tale’s purpose is to warn against the old marrying the young and that the young woman will always cheat on the man. This moral lesson within the Merchant’s tale is a recurring theme that seems to be brought up during several of Chaucer’s tales. For this reason, it is safe to assume that this is a strong point in which Chaucer wants to emphasize through heavy repetition. This makes the Merchant’s tale a very powerful tool within the Tales.
The merchant is described as an accomplished man who has a “forked beard, and girt in motley gown, and high on horse he sat, Upon his head a Flemish beaver hat; His boots were fastened rather elegantly. His spoke his notions out right pompously, Stressing the times when he had won, not lost.”(Chaucer, General Prologue). As stated in the general prologue, he is a well dressed man who knows how to poise himself. He is a skilled merchant as seen in the statement, “At money-changing he could make a crown.”(Chaucer, General Prologue). Despite this, he does not seem to be a happy man. The merchant, in his prologue, woes and laments about his knowledge of the weeping and wailing as a result of marriage. He claims about his wife that, “For though the foul Fiend to her wedded were, She'd overmatch him, this I dare to swear.”(Chaucer, Merchant’s Prologue). He spends much of the introduction speaking ill of his wife and of marriage. He speaks of the 2 months he has spent as a married man with disgust and “more than common cruelty. Were I unbound, as may I prosperous be! I'd never another time fall in the snare. We wedded men in sorrow live, and care;”(Chaucer, Merchant’s Prologue). He has clearly been through tough times in regards to the subject. To adapt the Merchant into my recasting, I have decided to make the story teller into a businessman. My tale will be warning the elderly from big name corporate office jobs so the businessman is the perfect role for the job. He will be the stereotypical Japanese businessman dressed in a well kept black suit. He will have a straight formal posture with an air of confidence. As the merchant was wary of marriage, the businessman will be analogously suspicious of large corporations. He has been working for a corporation for 2 months and hates every minute of it. He feels that the company restricts his potential with its strict rules and regulations. I chose this character because I feel that modern readers would be better able to relate to such tales compared to courtly love.
The merchant tells a tale warning against marriages. While this warning may be applicable in modern times, I wanted to use this theme in a more business sense. The businessman’s tale will be a story about an elderly businessman committing to a work assignment for a company and having a younger businessman stealing the job from him. The salesman’s tale will be a tale focused on the workings of the business world instead of the marriage life, both of which are a commitment made by those who are involved.
The Canterbury tales seems to have a recurring theme warning against marrying young and beautiful wives. In terms of the theme of marriage, the merchant’s tale fits perfectly with the warnings that Chaucer gives. My vision for the modern Canterbury Tales deals with the dangers of the business world and warns the audience of the pitfalls and traps of the economic world we live in today. For this new theme, an accepted job would be the equivalent of a marriage as both are commitments taken with the vows of finishing the task that one has promised to fulfill. As marriage is a vow to love and care for the spouse, a job acceptance is a vow to work towards the success of the company. In line with the character of the merchant, my salesman will be a man who has been through his fair share of bad business deals and bad employers. His anger and bitterness towards employers will fuel his tale of betrayal as the merchant’s bitterness towards wives did his tale.
The salesman’s tale will begin with the aging business man suddenly wishing to reenter the business world and enters the job searching market. As seen in the video, the aging man is no longer in his prime and lacks in aesthetic appeal. He has heavily wrinkled skin and completely graying hair. The appearance of the old man is vital to the story for it is the primary reason why misfortune befalls upon him. This old man will find the company, May, who is willing to hire him. They offer him a marketing job which he falls in love with. As time passes, a young and uprising businessman comes along and becomes one of the elderly businessman’s subordinates. The young man, depicted in the video, is dashing and sharp in his choice of wear. Little to the elder’s knowledge, the young businessman is scheming with the company to have the elder fired. As Chaucer’s January is cheated on by May for his lack of aesthetic appeal and lack of sexual prowess, my elderly business man is being fired for his unsightliness in the work area as well as lack of efficiency in modern technologies. The video helps bring out these traits that an ordinary essay can never truly depict. By showing an image of characters, the audience has a concrete image of the characters and can further understand the reasoning behind the firing of the elderly man.
The recasting of the Merchant’s tale follows the general layout of the merchant’s tale with a more modern twist. The businessman is a common stereotype among modern society and the setting is placed in the modern business world. I believe this tale will be more relevant to modern times than the original told by Chaucer.





Works Cited
Casino Royal. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 2006
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Ed. W. W. Skeat. Trans.
Equilibrium. Dimension Films, 2002
Green Street Hooligans. Baker Street, 2005
Shooter. Paramount Pictures, 2007

Stage 2 video

recasting canterbury stage 1

As the years have passed since Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales, many social norms and morals have changed. Because of this change, many things that may have been important during Chaucer’s time become less applicable in the modern era. Knights marrying young maidens were a social possibility in the original Canterbury Tales, but for modern times, such topics become obsolete and improbable. The merchant’s tale in the Canterbury Tales is such a tale about the marriage of a knight and a young woman. The tale’s purpose is to warn against the old marrying the young and that the young woman will always cheat on the man. While this warning may be applicable in modern times, I wanted to use this theme in a more business sense. My tale will be told by an aging salesman. The salesman’s tale will be a story about an elderly businessman committing to a work assignment for a company and having a younger businessman stealing the job from him. The salesman’s tale will be a tale focused on the workings of the business word instead of the marriage life, both of which are a commitment made by those who are involved.
The Canterbury tales seems to, as a whole, warn the audience about the dangers of marriage. In terms of the theme of marriage, the merchant’s tale fits perfectly with the warnings that Chaucer gives. My vision for the modern Canterbury Tales deals with the dangers of the business world and warns the audience of the pitfalls and traps of the economic world we live in today. For this new theme, an accepted job would be the equivalent of a marriage as both are commitments taken with the vows of finishing the task that one has promised to fulfill. The merchant, in his prologue, woes and laments about his knowledge of the weeping and wailing as a result of marriage. He claims his wife, were she to marry the devil, could overmatch the devil. He spends much of the introduction speaking ill of his wife and of marriage. He has clearly been through tough times in regards to the subject. In line with this character, my salesman will be a man who has been through his fair share of bad business deals and bad employers. His anger and bitterness towards employers will fuel his tale of betrayal as the merchant’s bitterness towards wives did his tale.
The salesman’s tale will begin with the aging business man suddenly wishing to reenter the business world and enters the job searching market. He will find the company, May, who is willing to hire him. They offer him a job which he falls in love with. As time passes, a young and uprising businessman comes along and becomes one of the elderly businessman’s subordinates. Little to the elder’s knowledge, the young businessman is scheming with the company to have the elder fired. It follows the general layout of the merchant’s tale with a more modern twist. I believe this tale will be more relevant to modern times than the original told by Chaucer.

Stage 5

First of all, I really liked how this project was split up into manageable segments with plenty of peer review for additional input. The first section had started out with just a hodgepodge of ideas, much like a brain storm for ideas. With the help of the peer reviews of my group, I was able to quickly come up with ideas for what sort of story I wanted to deal with. I had a general idea of the back story I wanted to fit with my slideshow, but the peer reviews and discussions with my group gave me new insights that I would not have thought of by myself. With the help of my group, I chose three of the images and an audio file that truly seemed to portray the theme that I wanted to flesh out of my Canterbury Tales. My thesis was a breeze to write because through out the whole process, I had been unconsciously creating a story that fit the slideshow and it only needed to be written down for the final section. Because the thesis was written to fit along with the audio and visual, they mix together to allow the audience to fully understand the theme and story that I wanted them to see. Overall, I truly appreciated this project and would like to delve deeper into the resetting of the Canterbury Tales.

stage 4

As spring’s “gentle rains” (Chaucer 1) “bathed each sprout” (Chaucer 2) in April, Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales opens with a fair company of pilgrims making their pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Thomas A Becket in Canterbury. As the pilgrims rest, travel worn, in the Tabard at Southwark, an interesting situation is devised in a clever scheme by Chaucer. By placing the socially diverse pilgrims in a common setting such as a tavern, the walls that separate the social classes that range from lowly millers, to gallant knights, and to religious pardoners. By removing these social bounds that have separated the classes for as long as the audience could remember, the characters can be analyzed for morals and virtues without the restraint of stereotypes and social pretense. For my resetting of The Canterbury Tales, I decided to place my characters at a train station in the rural area of Japan. The travelers of my tales are all traveling to Tokyo for a chance at a new life. As they sit at a bento [Japanese lunch box] food stand, waiting for their train, they are, like Chaucer’s pilgrims, reverted to being just simple travelers regardless of social standings, age, or reasons of travel. Unlike Chaucer’s tales, social class is not as prevalent in deciding a person’s worth. For this reason, I decided that age would also be a contributing factor. Respecting elders in Japan is a very important aspect of Japanese culture. By placing these travelers in a rural part of Japan where social hierarchy becomes null, I can replicate the techniques that Chaucer uses to create the same atmosphere in the Tabard at Southwark.

From a historical point of view, a pilgrimage in the spring would make the most amount of sense. The temperature would be approaching comfortable traveling weather and the pilgrims would have enough time to return before the next winter before travel becomes impossible. To the audience The Canterbury Tales was originally written towards, this setting would seem most appropriate as they can relate towards it. The setting is a key aspect that allows the reader to relate towards the tale, so as my tale is written with college students and professors in mind, I have decided to start my depiction of the Tales in the start of the fall semester of college. Some of the characters that I have in mind for my version of the Tales involve a college freshman moving into the city by himself, a teacher who was recently transferred from a rural elementary school to a Tokyo elementary school, and a business man getting his first job in the city. These characters would most likely make the journey during the fall and as college students ourselves, I believed that the audience could appreciate moving into a new setting at the start of the fall semester.

By placing my travelers in the rural train station of Japan, I can eliminate the rough barriers that separate the lives of such uniquely diverse characters. Much like Chaucer’s tales, I can analyze the characters as humans with out the interference of social standings. The time frame that I have set for my Tales can help the audience relate to my cast of characters in a way that would ordinarily not be possible because they have most likely never experienced traveling by train across Japan. The setting of a story is an essential part of conveying the meaning hidden behind the text. Choosing the right setting can either help successfully transfer the ideas to the readers or confuse them even more by distorting their views of your narrative. For this reason, I have chosen to rewrite Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales in the modern setting of Japan.






Works Cited
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Ed. W. W. Skeat. Trans.
Lynne, Jeff. Electric Light Orchestra, Mr. Blue Sky, "Out of the Blue", 1977, Musicland Studios, Munich, Germany.