Bloom's Literary Themes - ymerleksi - home

118
Geoffrey Chaucer
[B&G 510]. The weasel was “supposed to conceive in its ear [like the
Blessed Virgin] and give birth through its mouth” [B&G 648; see also
V143]. The “weasel’s colors are Alison’s, black and white; furthermore,
the appearance of the weasel precedes rain”—a fact that ironically
foreshadows the later deception of John in Nicholas’s prophecy of a
second flood [V143]. In folklore, moreover, the weasel was considered
“unclean [and] afflicted with abnormal sexual desires” [V143]. In all
these ways, then, various aspects of the Miller’s description of Alison
would have alerted Chaucer’s readers to her potential as a violator of
various sexual and religious taboos.
Other details have the same effect. Thus, when Alison is compared
to a blossoming pear-tree (l. 62), we are reminded that this was a
standard “symbol of sexual awakening” [V147]. The purse (tasseled
with silk and decorated with brassy spangles) that hangs from her
belt (ll. 64–65) not only seems “slightly pretentious” [V148] but may
also symbolize “cupidity” [B&G 540]. In various ways, particularly in
the allusion to her soft skin (which is softer than wool), she is ironically
compared to the Virgin Mary [V147], and other details used in
her description may allude to the biblical Canticles, or Song of Songs
[V150]. Meanwhile, the fact that she is compared to a swallow may
have reminded Chaucer’s first audience that swallows were not only
associated “ ‘with sexual licence’ ” [B&G 628] but that such birds could
also sense when their nests were about to fall [B&G 492 and 628]—a
fact that may seem ironic in light of later developments in the present
tale. The images that associate Alison with the potential for lechery
and infidelity are too numerous (and often too obvious) to mention,
but one last detail seems worth noting: she is compared to the plant
called the “piggesnye” (i.e., pig’s eye; l. 82), a term that not only seems
comically incongruous but may also have reminded some of Chaucer’s
readers that this particular plant was sometimes considered a remedy
for “maladies of the groin” [V152]. Nicholas, in fact, will soon try to
use Alison as just such a remedy himself, thus violating not only the
obvious Christian taboos against adultery and fornication but also
transgressing the common cross-cultural taboo stipulating that a guest
should not mistreat a host.
Nicholas’s incredibly comic “courtship” of Alison (which quickly
involves his forthrightly grabbing her between the legs; l. 90) demonstrates
in practically every way possible (both ironic and unironic) why
he is so often described as “hende” (or “handy”; l. 86), a term which