The Second Nuns Tale English Literature Essay

The “ Second Nun ‘s Tale ” is a narrative about a immature adult female named Cecilia. Cecilia admires the Virgin Mary and wants to be a virgin for life, but she is finally engaged to Valerian. On the dark of Valerian and Cecilia ‘s nuptials, she tells Valerian that anyone who disrespects her organic structure will be killed by a guardian angel. Valerian wants to run into with the guardian angel, but he must be baptized by Saint Urban foremost. During his baptism, he has a vision proclaiming one God. He went place where Cecilia and the guardian angel were waiting. He asked the guardian angel for one want: to baptise his brother, Tiburce. Later on, Cecilia is arrested by Almachius, a heathen. Even though she is clever at her test, she is sentenced to decease. To kill her, she is put in boiling hot H2O, but she lives through it. Then, the executioner fails to decapitate her three times. Cecilia lives for three yearss more. During these three yearss, she converts non-believers. After her decease, Saint Urban declares her Saint Cecilia.

The fable of Cecilia is evident in this narrative. Cecilia was a married virgin who converted tonss of people to Christianity. The cardinal them in this narrative is “ bisynesse ” in God ‘s work. Peoples suffered because God was so busy with everything else, that he had no clip to concentrate on one individual at a clip ; he was all over the topographic point. The characters in the “ Second Nun ‘s Tale ” are symbols. The guardian angel symbolizes the Holy Spirit ; Cecilia symbolizes celibacy and belief ; Valerian symbolizes celibacy and the “ spring of religion. ” This narrative is a discourse: a discourse about one God or “ ‘Three Persons that are One in Deity ‘ ” ( p. 443 ) . It is besides a discourse about believing in something stronger than one ‘s ego. The “ Second Nun ‘s Tale ” compares to the “ Prioress ‘s Tale ” for many grounds, including, the presence of the Virgin Mary and the strong belief in one God. In the “ Second Nun ‘s Tale, ” Cecilia has a strong love for the Virgin Mary, while in the Tale of the Prioress, the immature male child is kept singing by the Virgin Mary even when he is dead. “ She ne’er ceased in supplication, or so I find in written of her, to God in love and apprehension, biding him to guard her hymen ” ( p. 437 ) , shows the belief in God means a batch to Cecilia. At the terminal of both narratives, each of the chief characters are proclaimed something: Cecilia a saint and the immature male child a sufferer. “ Saint Urban and his deacons in secret fetched forth her organic structure and buried it by dark among his saints. Her sign of the zodiac came to be the Church of Saint Cecilia, hers by right ” ( p. 449 ) .

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“ Manciple ‘s Tale ”

Exemplum from a Folk Tale

Phoebus, Phoebus ‘ married woman, Phoebus ‘ crow

The Manciple begins his narrative with a really fine-looking adult male named Phoebus. Phoebus has a married woman who he loves so really dearly and would ne’er make anything to ache her, but Phoebus can be a spot covetous at times. Phoebus besides has a crow with white plumes. This crow can reiterate anything that it hears. One twenty-four hours, while Phoebus is gone, Phoebus ‘ married woman brings her lover place. When Phoebus returns, the crow tells him of what he heard and saw. In a tantrum of fury, Phoebus murders his married woman and pulls out all of the crow ‘s white plumes and replaces them with black plumes. He besides takes away the crows ability to speak and sing. Phoebus so throws the crow out of the house. The moral of the narrative is to forbear one ‘s lingua.

Rhetorical narrative means a narrative utilizing luxuriant, but insincere linguistic communication or utilizing linguistic communication really persuasively. The cardinal warning in this narrative is ‘ ” Never tell anyone in all your life that any other has enjoyed his married woman, for he will detest you mortally, believe it ” ( p. 483 ) , which means that the courier is the 1 who ever gets in problem alternatively of the 1 who genuinely should. The crow should be punished because he repeated the married woman ‘s disgraceful concern. “ ‘Much yak is the nutrient of iniquitous idea ” ‘ ( p. 484 ) , is besides why the crow should be punished. This tale proves that problem comes from disputing because when the Crow told on the married woman and her extramarital ways, the married woman ended up dead. Besides, the crow and Phoebus were reasoning, so Phoebus took all of the Crows pure and beautiful white plumes and replaced them with ugly, black plumes. Nothing good comes from disputing.

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