‘Masks, poses, facades, deceptions – all are weapons in the battle of life.’ Disguise and deception in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Merchant’s Tale and Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer
Tom Crossley Year 13
eception – meaning mendacity, trickery or betrayal – is a vital theme explored in both The Merchant’s Tale and She Stoops to Conquer . A feminist reading of these texts would argue the two writers present deception as ‘weapons’ for the characters of May and Kate, the ‘battle of life’ being their struggle against the patriarchal societies of the 1300s and the 1700s. Yet, the effectiveness of deception is questionable, for both women are still ultimately trapped in their marriages. Whilst Chaucer’s presentation of deception seems to parallel that of Goldsmith, the Merchant’s does not, his view being that deception is only a ‘weapon’ for self-preservation and inflicting harm – it cannot be used for good. This idea of deception being a ‘weapon’, something that enables one to defend themselves in the ‘battle of life’, is found in the female protagonists of both texts: May and Kate use ‘masks’ in order to fend off the patriarchy’s attempts to shackle them, their joint goal to gain greater power somewhat successful by the end of their respective narratives. With this, Chaucer and Goldsmith wish to challenge their societies and contemporary writers, in doing so re-educating their audiences. Januarie, the lecherous knight of The Merchant’s Tale , acts as Chaucer’s representative of the patriarchal society of the Middle Ages; his view of women is reflective of the wider view held by men at the time. In the beginning of the tale, the narrator, ie the D
Merchant, describes Januarie’s opinion of a wife as ‘the fruit’ of a husband’s ‘tresor’, this mercantile language equating women to another piece of a man’s property. Januarie also likens women to ‘warm wex’ men might ‘with handes plye’, objects men can manipulate and control for their own pleasure. This objectification of women was justified by medieval society by its interpretation of the book of Genesis, in which Eve – woman – succumbs to temptation by eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, causing God to remove man from the garden of Eden. As woman was responsible for Original Sin, Januarie can use his wife, May, like ‘warmwex’. However, through the ‘weapon’ of deception,
Chaucer and Goldsmith wish to challenge their
societies and contemporary
writers, in doing so re-educating their audiences
May is able to gain power back from the patriarchy represented by her husband. Chaucer employs traductio to emphasise this transfer of power whenMay ‘emprented the cliket’ to Januarie’s secret garden ‘in warm wex’ so that she can have sex with Damyan, a mere squire. May becomes the one manipulating the ‘warm wex’ for her own pleasure, achieved through deceit, whilst Januarie is, in turn, cuckolded. With this, Chaucer ridicules the patriarchy as the impotent man of the fabliau genre – a popular form of literature in Chaucer’s time that was bawdy and comical – whilst woman is empowered. May is therefore not just a ‘lay-figure’ as Tatlock argues.
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