Modern Adaptation – The Canterbury Tales
The Sea Captain’s Tale
In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales- The sea captain’s tale describes the story of a miserly merchant in medieval England and his rapacious, manipulative wife and the unique relationship that they have with a tenant in their house- the monk. The story talks about the manner in which the manipulative and greedy wife convinces the monk that she is unloved and that in reality the merchant. She claims that her husband is really a tyrant who does not truly love her and that she is not treated with respect by him. The monk falls in love with the manipulative wife of the merchant they share a lot of passion together. The wife then convinces the monk that she owes money to the merchant and thus he decides to help her. He borrows money from the merchant and then gives it to his wife. The tale come to an end when the monk tells the merchant that he loaned the money out to his wife- and then runs away from town. Finally the manipulative wife is trapped and promises to pay her debt in bed. This tale identifies the potential danger that passionate women can pose to society and I believe that Chaucer wants us to understand and take note of this potential danger that such women may pose.
In my modern adaptation, I hope to maintain the same relationships between the merchant, his wife and a third person, however I hope to establish a more formal relationship with the merchant and his wife’s lover. I want to maintain the entire essence of the setting but transpose it into a more modern and more possible present adaptation. The scenario will be the same however. In this version- the merchant is a highly successful, but stingy businessman. This businessman starts a professional relationship with an old friend of his who helps him in his work. The businessman’s wife- a very manipulative and greedy person convinces the old friend that she is unloved by the businessman and that she is repeatedly abused by her husband. The two become passionate lovers and the wife hopes to manipulate and exorcise money from him before telling her husband that she was forced into the relationship by his friend. Further an increase in stress in their business relationship makes for the perfect setting. Thus the wife asks her lover to elope with her and asks him to liquefy all his assets and run away to another country. As the old friend decides to run- he borrows money from his partner as he realizes that he does not have enough money to make it to another country. However finally as the moment arrives, the old friend see’s through the wife’s plan and confronts the businessman. In conclusion, the old friend does run away to another country- but without the wife and with all of the borrowed money. His last email states that all the money he owes is now the responsibility of the businessman’s wife. Finally the wife promises to make it up to the businessman in bed as she dosen’t have any money herself and no means to earn any.
Your modern adaptation of the Sea Captain's tale is very developed. You have structure and a plan for the tale. However, I was not sure which character is telling your modernized tale. You might want to develop that character more in your essay. You could also use that in your visual presentation.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you have explained the first tale, then explained how you have modernized it. You have fleshed out what you want out of the modern adaption and seem to be on the right track. I do think you need to develop the teller of the tale as David mentioned before me. I'm not really sure how you have incorporated that into your setting.
ReplyDeleteThe tale you adapted provided a very good basis for the changes you made to update it. I agree that the narration of the tale will be very important to the reader's understanding, and convey the cinematic scale of the story you tell.
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