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.