The Nun’s Priest had a great introduction; I was drawn in as soon as the story began because it was written in such a nonchalant manner. Immediately I assumed that the entire story would be about this simple widowed woman and her two young daughters. However my thought pattern definitely changed when this tale moved subjects to the personified Chanticleer. I also noticed that this story had a much different rhythm than The Miller’s Tale, which seemed to be more rigid, in a writing sense. There were many reoccurring themes in this tale that seemed to resemble almost every word off of my notes.
One very important theme is in general, love and relationships. The reader can first identify this theme during the beginning of the story between the widows love for her daughters, which then transitions to Chanticleer’s love for his seven wives. With that said, Chanticleer also demonstrates “images of chivalry” to his wives; for example in lines (415-417) Chanticleer shows his wives where grain of corn in the grass is found. I would interpret this personified event as a man pulling out the chair for a woman to sit in at the dinner table.
I really enjoyed the consistent ties to biblical scripture and miscellaneous stories told by the narrator. For example (lines 460-465) I thought it was especially clever writing when Chanticleer compared the sly fox to Judas Iscariot. I felt a sense of understanding and humor simultaneously, from that comparison alone. In a broad sense the overall storyline of a fox pursuing a rooster and the rooster trying to fool the fox is simple and easy to understand; however to incorporate the somewhat complex stories and personified animals adds an entirely new twist.
I believe that is the precise reason why this is such a popular tale, that is still being read even after hundreds of years since its conception. The only factors that I disliked about this tale would be the sometimes very long side stories. Most of the stories that the narrator rambled about were relevant and humorous, but sometimes they seemed a little too far off topic for me. Lastly, I thought the ending of the tale was great because the reader doesn’t know if Chanticleer will make it home safely, leaving it on a cliffhanger. The Nun’s Priest also tied the story together well, urging the audience to understand the moral.
