The Purpose of the Canon's Yeoman's Tale

Mai Zhang

Mrs. Martinez

AP English

21 October 2006

The Purpose of the Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale

Why did the Yeoman give his confession and how does intentions relate to current real life situations? The answer to this question can be found when analyzing the Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales in the 1300’s. The reasons the Canon’s Yeoman tells his tale: to repent for his sins, to denounce alchemy, and to change his ways of life, can be related to modern day life.

First off the Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale can be seen as a desperate confession to repent for sins. The Medieval Christians viewed confession as a way to blind Satan and escape temptation (Ryan, 298). Instead of a priest, the Host, Harry Bailey, serves as a confessor to the Yeoman. The Host asks the Yeoman a series of questions quite similar to what a priest would ask a sinner. The whole tale can be viewed in a religious way with the Canon being the Devil and the Yeoman being the sinner who gives in to temptation. The alchemist’s fire that blows up on them so many times corresponds with the fires of hell (Ryan, 299). The Yeoman does not portray his Canon in such a negative way. This is partly due to the fact that he wants to make it seem as if his actions weren’t as sinful. The Canon in the Yeoman’s actual tale is however, described in a demonic way. This Canon knows that he cannot perform alchemy. His whole purpose is to use deception in order to achieve an end. The Canon’s tricks associate fire and blindness, thus strengthening the idea that he is devilish. The Yeoman gives his confession because he probably has an ill feeling that he was associating with a fiend similar to the evil Canon in his story. The Yeoman believes that once he confesses, God will have forgiven him and he will be free from the bondage of alchemy. The fact that the Yeoman joins the pilgrimage directly relates to his penitence. All this can be related to modern day life because it resembles what sinners today do. Religious Christians often go to confess their sins to priests in order to repent quite like the Yeoman does. Human conscience eats away at a person until they finally reveal their sins and ask for forgiveness.

Another reason why the Yeoman tells his tale is to denounce alchemy. The Yeoman truly hates the fact that he wasted seven years of his life on such a fraudulent ordeal (Campbell, 174). His disgust with the Canon’s falsehood and the falsehood of alchemy led him to part his ways. He doesn’t want to become a false alchemist like the Canon. His tale also serves as a warning to the other pilgrims. The second part of his tale repudiates false alchemists and those who are taken in by them. During his confession, the Yeoman puts the blame on the alchemist. One can say he is not truly sincere in his confession because he does not take responsibility for his own actions. The denouncement of alchemy by the Yeoman parallels with Chaucer’s intentions of the tale. Chaucer satirizes alchemy probably because he views it as charlatanism. There is reason to believe that Chaucer himself was tricked by an alchemist or that he had unfavorable experiences with them in his day. The craft of alchemy can also be seen as symbolic. Alchemy can represent a broad aspect of life when one analyzes the moral of the story. In one perspective, alchemy can symbolize the unnecessary things humans get caught up in that make life harder and less enjoyable. The whole moral of the story is to take life as it comes enjoying the present and looking forward to the future. The Yeoman did not do this because he wasted all his time and energy on alchemy. The big picture is that he lost seven years of his life by dwelling on this single craft. When the Yeoman denounces alchemy, he is really denouncing all the things that take away from one’s life. An example that relates to a current real life situation is work. People who are considered workaholics spend all their time working in order to gain financial security. These people spend