The miller’s tale is used as a parody of the knight’s tale, which is a joke aimed at the 1st fictional audience of the pilgrims travelling towards Canterbury. The coarseness in this is self evident, the parody is based on the fact the knight’s tale was gentle and about chivalry, whereas the miller’s tale was very much about slapstick humour and sex. An example of some of the slapstick humour is at the end of the tale when Nicholas passes wind in Absolon’s face, “This Nicholas anon leet fle a fart”. The coarseness of this type of humour, and the language used, for example ‘fart’ although not really taboo, it is a colloquial phrase, exactly the type of phrasing the knight would not have used. The parody of the knight’s tale is also a kin to the parody of the tellers. For, the knight is as expected a noble, chivalrous, gentleman, whereas the miller is a loud, brutish, flippant man. The tellers are the embodiments of their tales.
The sexual references are littered all over the tale. Especially the description of Alyson. As she is the manifestation of all of the sexual frustration of the male pilgrims. Which makes the miller’s tale such a powerful parody, for the knight’s tale (in all the teller’s nobility) had presumed that good honest men would put love above everything else. Whereas, Chaucer used the miller to represent the other side of man, the hugely non – sensitive, single minded, sexually driven side. “Hir mouth was sweete as bragot or the meeth” such ambiguous descriptive techniques indicated a sexual intent on the part of the teller. For it can be interpreted that Chaucer is innocently and honourabley describing Alyson’s mouth as being her voice/language as being sweet, but what is indicated is that her mouth is sweet to the taste. The repeated use of hyperbole only heightens the sexual desirability of Alyson. “Ful brighter was the shining of her hewe”. All of these techniques create a pornographic undertone to the tale, which provides much of the coarseness of the tale.
The unsubtly of the sexual innuendos, “As any wezele hir body gent and small” though this van have a double meaning pertaining to Alyson’s flexible morality, for the purpose of the 1sr fictional audience, it is actually hinting towards her young flexible body for the purpose of sexual relations. This along with the character of the miller, who has been established as the parody of the knight and as each tale is inexorably linked with the teller, it is fitting that the tale is only as coarse as the teller. As if the coarseness of the tale was not assured as it is, the unsubtle linear jokes towards the end of the tale reassure the rough humour, “And he was redy with his iren hoot, And Nicholas amide the ers he smoot”. Such straightforward unsubtle humour was quite deliberate from Chaucer for it satisfies the need of entreating the 1st audience (who have been drinking and require uncomplicated punch lines to such a long dirty joke) it also more importantly reinforces the parody to the knight’s tale. Which was not humourous but a tale of love and honour, which the miller’s tale was the complete opposite to as it was a tale of sex a deceit.
In conclusion Chaucer was consciously writing the miller’s tale as a fabliau. The metre of the unstressed and stressed syllables appearing in alternate in each of the lines, coupled with the incredibly coarse core running through the whole tale. Made up of sexual innuendos, slapstick comedy and of course the teller of the tale himself. All these things fit the oxford dictionary definition of a fabliau. But this tale is not just a fabliau for the sake of it; it is part of a much bigger patchwork of tales, its purpose to be the complete parody of the knights.
