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Love and Hate, Gender Relations, Goodness and Evil, Power and Control,…
Love and Hate
Courtly Love
The medieval concept of expressing admiration and love in a noble, chivalrous fashion.
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Chaucer satirises courtly love, and contrasts it with sexual desire.
Sexual Desire
Sexual desire is an attraction based solely on physical appearance and fantasy: such an ideal occupies Januaries mind entirely.
Misplaced or disproportionate sexual desire acts as the focal point for many of the Canterbury Tales.
Januarie is driven by sexual desire, proven through the objectifying way he describes May.
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Camaraderie
Many war poets in particular focused on the brutal nature of war, although there were still many who preferred instead to reflect upon the emotions they felt for one another on the battlefield E.g Futility by Wilfred Owen showed a departure from his other work which tended to linger into the disturbing and graphic. Futility is light-hearted, mournful and very human.
Gender Relations
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Female Expectations
Critical reception of A Doll's House at the time of its production had caused massive anger, so much so that a rewritten version had to be created through which Nora ends up staying at the home. The way that this gender stereotype has been reinforced through censorship shows how female expectations shaped the lives of women in the Victorian period.
Manipulation
Although probably not what many would call a feminist, Chaucer's portrayal of May is controversial in different ways.
Does May succeed? She manages to manipulate a naive old man into getting exactly what she wants. She climbs through social ranking due to her marriage to January, and as such ends up being wealthy, with estate, and having sex with Damien.
Is that the message or is that a modern reading of the tale: although May succeeds in this way, is the message of female empowerment the one that Chaucer wanted to send? The way that Edenic imagery is used in the garden emphasises the "sinfulness" of the adultery that May commits there. Because this tale is told by the Merchant, the assumption here is that he is not praising May for her actions, but instead snidely attacking Januarie for his failings. Perhaps a more realistic reading would suggest that the Merchant is making a comparison in terms of social rank - that the "issues" that come with having a wife affect all ranks across the hierarchy.
Goodness and Evil
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Good and Evil often act as comparative points between two points in the story - the transition of a good man to an evil one and vice versa.
Power and Control
Medieval Society
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The Church
The Church (because of the context as explained above) was beginning to lose power over the population.
Social Satire
In the host's portrait of each of the Pilgrims during the Canterbury Tale's prologue, he implies that most of the members of each estate actually fail to meet their duties. Contextually, during the 14th century, the previously rigid foundation of these three estates was beginning to fall apart.
A merchant class was on the rise, while gaining money and power throughout society. An intellectual class was also rising, involving those who trained in literature and science but not destined for life within the church.
Victorian Society
Victorian society maintained all of the aspects of a traditionalist male dominance that was prevalent in previous societies. A Doll's House portrays this as a failed ideology: Nora overcomes the limits that social strands and traditions have upon her and leaves. Expectations are subverted.
It could be interpreted than Ibsen's use of the different occupations Banker, Lawyer and Doctor is utilised to represent the audience to whom this play would be performed. If this was intended, which it seems to be so, then Ibsen is directly satirising the idea of institution and law. Even the most respected occupations in society are corrupt.
Life and Death
Januarie
Januarie's marriage to May comes towards the end of his life. His warped perception and manipulation of religious ideals allows him to indulge in the idea that he will be sent to heaven after his passing. His participation in the sacrament is completely corrupt, and is the first suggestion that he is an entirely idiotic old man.
He has lived a life of sexual indulgence and Usury, which only serves to emphasise the idiocy of his incentives.
This is almost a continuation of Chaucer's satiric mockery of the religious, in that they are never quite able to fulfil their jobs without being somewhat corrupt.
Nora
Nora suggests that her suicide is a necessity if Torvald's reputation is to be saved. She is willing to commit to it so long as it protects her family. It seems hyperbolic from an audience perspective, but it serves the purpose of contrasting what Nora would do for Torvald and what he would do for her.