Signification Through Structural Irony in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

The structure Geoffrey Chaucer chose for his masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, of utilizing a melange of narrative voices to tell separate tales allows him to explore and comment on subjects in a multitude of ways. Because of this structure of separate tales, the reader must regard as extremely significant when tales structurally overlap, for while the reader may find it difficult to render an accurate interpretation through one tale, comparing tales enables him to lessen the ambiguity of Chaucer's meaning. The Clerk's Tale and The Merchant's Tale both take on the institution of marriage, but comment on it in entirely different manner, but both contain an indictment of patriarchal narcissism and conceit.
Chaucer gives us a description of the structure of The Canterbury Tales within the text. In The Merchant's Tale, the narrator states,
Diverse men diversely him tolde
Of marriage
manye ensamples olde:......

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Title: Chaucer: Its The Man's Fault
Approximate Word Count: 2158
Approximate Pages: 9 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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