Seeing as how my adapted setting of the Canterbury Tales takes place on Tech’s campus, the idea of recasting a pilgrim should reflect Georgia Tech’s student body in relation to the pilgrims described in Chaucer’s Tales. After evaluating all the characters involved in Chaucer’s work, the Clerk’s personality and lifestyle appears to be a firm representation of a normal kid going to Tech. With the changing of my setting from London to Atlanta, I will assume congruency and develop my new character around the lifestyle of a smart college student. The tale itself shall be upgraded to bring old ideals during Chaucer’s time into a more modern light.
Before we can explain the new pilgrim and its own relationship with Chaucer’s work, we must first review the Clerk’s Tale in its original form. The Tale begins with a brief description of a king who rules the land near Saluzzo, Italy. The Clerk announces his name to be Walter who, in fact, is in desperate need to find a wife considering he has no succession to the throne. One day, the King runs into a poor family and comes upon a beautiful young lady named Griselda. He proclaims he shall marry this daughter and seeks permission from the father, Janicula. The future marriage is put into action and King Walter tells Griselda one simple rule. She will obey his every command, no matter the circumstances or pain will be brought upon her. She agrees with the instruction, and the covenant is confirmed with the institute of marriage signifying a bond between them.
Later, Griselda gives birth to a girl where King Walter feels is a good opportunity to test his wife in loyalty. He orders her to give away her baby without question and with much expectation; she obeys his request and allows the baby to be taken from her. A second test is presented when Griselda gives birth to yet another child, but this time it is a little boy (possible descendant to the throne). King Walter announces she leave the boy to be raised by another mother, so Griselda gives away her baby boy to please her husband’s wishes, being true to the covenant. The king is proud to his wife’s loyalty but he still does not seem satisfied considering he presents a third and final test to Griselda.
King Walter reveals his third test to involve getting a divorce. Without notice, he demands to be separated from Griselda claiming he is in love with another woman. True to her word, Griselda agrees with the king and lets him leave for his mistress.
In recasting the Canterbury Tales, I thought it would be appropriate to modify the Clerk into a good representation of Tech’s overall student body. Instead of a poor student of philosophy, the Clerk, in my setting, is an incoming freshman studying Aerospace Engineering. Student’s at Tech view Aerospace as one of the most stressful and challenging courses while taking on the heaviest class schedule. With the amount of stress and pressure that comes with the territory, I see the Clerk as being a disheveled teenager who looks like he hasn’t showered in a couple of days. Hovering over countless amounts of reading material and several cups of coffee, the Clerk spends most of his time at the Library. Sleeping and studying are pretty much the highlights of his week, and he only leaves his dorm either to head over to the Library or go to class. This is a huge stereotype seeing as how not all student’s at Tech display this sort of character, but it’s not too far off of a description.
In the Canterbury Tales, the Clerk is viewed as a dedicated student where he spends almost all of his money on books and learning leaving merely nothing to purchase proper clothing. He is said to look wan and threadbare. The Clerk, at Tech, has trouble developing any sort of female relationship due to his shy nature and undeveloped social skills. I mean he’s spent most of his life shielded from society by his parents. You couldn’t expect him to just jump into the student life and outgoing. But, in response to the Tales, I will recast my character as a some what multi-dimensional person who does in fact want to broaden his scope of learning. Rather than a student of just Aerospace Engineering, the new Clerk expresses a need to reach out to the minorities by learning multiple languages. Fluent in Spanish, German, and French, the Clerk feels he can one day become an "ambassador" for the NASA program. His desire in life is to help unite the world's space technology to increase progression in space science and efficiency.
Chaucer's perspective of the Clerk doesn't allow him to develop as a character. Chaucer views him as being a nerdy kid who doesn't talk very much. Although the Clerk has this abundance of knowledge, his shyness gets in the way of expressing his own views and intelligence. It's almost as if Chaucer is trying to influence society to express their views freely and don't be afraid to take chances to portray your intelligence.
Citations:
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Ed. W. W. Skeat. Trans.
Georgia Institute of Technology. 2010. http://www.gatech.edu/.
"Nowhere Man". Rubber Soul (album). The Beatles. 1965
No comments:
Post a Comment