A Knights Tale – Film Analysis
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William is the first main character to appear in the film. He has sandy blonde hair, brown eyes, and has much confidence and strong will. He represents the Knight in The Canterbury Tales, because he followed chivalry and jousted. Roland is the second character; he has short brown hair, is fat, and is a blunt talker. He represents the Parson, because he watches over the people who are close to him. Wat has short red hair and has an extremely short temper. He represents the Miller, because he is a provocative man. Chaucer has short blonde hair, is skinny, and is a very clever man. He is Geoffrey Chaucer, the writer and unanimous narrator of The Canterbury Tales.
Anachronism is significant toward the film. The films setting takes place in the Dark Ages, but the characters listen and dance to twentieth century music. Williams new armor also has Nike emblems marked into it. In the beginning of the movie, Chaucer uses a simile to describe himself, as a “Lily among the thorns”. The quote represents Chaucer being smart and educated but surrounded by mean and uneducated people: he is the beautiful lily or person, surrounded by ugly and mean thorns or people. “The road to Rune”, is the trip to Rune William and his friends are taking to compete in a jousting tournament. Rune describes characters that hold significant in a piece of writing. This may be a foreshadowing that William was meant to change his stars. Chaucer states that he took a “Involuntary vow of poverty”, which relates to holy men giving all of their possessions to God. Chaucer is not a holy worker, so he means that he was stripped of his possessions because of his gambling problem.
Chaucer means to humiliate the Pardoner and Summoner as they did to him. He wants to eviscerate them in a literary way, to expose who they really are, to make them naked with his writing skill. The Pardoner and the Summoner are depicted as holy men. They both do the Lords work by collecting money for the church. They are also described as corrupt and un-holy. They pose to be holy to the church, but they have no faith and take possessions for personal gain. Chaucer did go through with his threat well, because he describes them in the ugliest and nastiest ways.
Jaucilan depicts the Nun from The Canterbury Tales in the movie. She is very flirtatious and sensitive towards men. She acts like she is devoted to the church, but shows false actions as the Nun does.
I agree with Chaucers statement about women, because during the movie William could not figure out what Jaucilan wanted from him. Jaucilan knew William in great detail and played games with him the whole movie. I think The Wife of Bath would agree with the statement. She had five husbands, so she would have experience of different mens characteristics. She was a big socializer and traveled all around so she was able to meet a lot of men and see who they really were.
Allusion