The very first passages of the poem express the negative view the Merchant;
“I have a wyf, the worste that may be;
… She is a shrewe at al”
Where he explains the bad luck he has had with his wife and the “sorwe..we wedded men liven in”. Obviously the Merchant is extremely cynical of the female populous and these opinions are focused greatly in his talk of love and marriage, which are the key features of “The Merchant’s Tale”.
In the fourteenth century, love and marriage were rarely expressed in the same sentence in the higher classes; marriage was often used as a business deal for political or economical reasons within the aristocracy. A contemporary example would be King Edward and his marriage to a French princess, which caused a great stir within the England at the time.
These practises are evident within “The Merchant’s Tale”;
“I trowe it were to longe yow to tarie,
If I yow tolde of every scrit and bond”
The Merchant states that it would take too long to tell us about everything she received from January because of the marriage. The audience knows nothing of May’s motives behind the marriage as she remains largely passive throughout the poem yet we know for sure that the marriage was totally devoid of any sort of love, and it is more than obvious May marries January for wealth.
The mirror in the market-place also stressed the commercial, business-like deal he imagines marriage to be. January has the money and May has the sexual attraction which he can buy.
Damian and May are representative of the young lovers within a courtly love parody; Damian makes himself “love sicke”, they exchange letters and keep the affair secret. Yet May is all too eager to accept her young lover and submits to Damian almost instantly. This is not in keeping with the rules of “courtly love” so the Merchant comically expresses May’s intentions as “pitee”, a word often repeated throughout the poem.
Yet “The Merchant’s Tale” isn’t a poem solely published to bash the name of women, or indeed be consistently hostile to women. It is much more and can be seen as a cynical view of many different subjects. All three main characters are satirical elements within themselves and serve to attack several areas of society, not just women. Is Chaucer not presenting a comical view of The Merchant himself? The Merchant’s narrative voice used throughout the poem by Chaucer means he is able to add his own opinion to the goings on within the poem; often written with sarcasm. Chaucer could be seen as satirically attacking the Merchant himself, not least due to his history in dealings with merchants when he worked with customs.
