chibsen quotes

'worthy man'

'I not how men him calle.'

Ironic- despite repetition of the phrase 'worthy man', Chaucer does not know his name.

'Weping and wailing'

The Merchant expresses his misery in a melodramatic manner as the prologue opens. Echoes the last line of the Clerk's tale of Griselda who act as an allegory of how humankind should accept the will of God.

'She is a shrewe at al.'

Metaphor- shrews screech and bite when feeling trapped- misogynistic/anti-feminist. Foreshadows May who deceives her husband when trapped in marriage.

'For wedlock is so esy and so clene,/ That in this world it is a paradis.'

Direct speech of Januarie- allusion to the Genesis story of the first marriage Adam and Eve in paradise is proleptic of Januraie and May's experience in their garden. Foreshadows the implicit threat o the serpent

'a wyf the fruit of his tresor'

Metaphor- combines two images of life and money.

'She nis nat wery him to love and serve'

She will never weary of loving and serving him. Use of double negative for emphasis. Wife is described as the paragon of fidelity and attentive subservience suggested by the traditional Christian marriage vows.

'A trewe servant dooth moore diligence/ Thy good to kepe, than thyn owene wyf'

Ironic- the merchant suggest that the relationship between aster and manservant is strong.

A wife is like 'londes, rentes, pasture, or commune'

List of material goods-shows how important property is to him and highlights a wife as a man's possession.

'wyf is mannes helpe and his confort;/ His paradis terrestre, and his disport.'

Repeated idea of marriage as 'paradis'. Biblical allusion- ironic as Eve was a legendary hindrance rather than a help to her husband.

'Upon his bare knees oughte al his lyf/ Thanken his God that him hath sent a wyf'

Image of a man praying on his knees is comic. Although prayer is supposed to be of thanks, the posture is reminiscent of penance.

'Oold fish and yong flessh'

'a pyk than a pickerel, And bet than old boef is the tender veel.'

Imagery returns to the market place- the purchase of food. A young wife is to be bought, owned and consumed as 'yong flessh', 'tendre veel'. Anima imagery- he calls himself a pike (a predatory animal) and a bull (an aggressive animal). This contrasts the honey-sweet marriage and the image of 'yong flessh'- provides disturbing insight into his fantasies.

'thise olde widwives... with them sholde I nevere live in reste.'

Says that older women know too much trickery to let him have a peaceful life. Direct reference to the Wife of Bath. This reference to another teller shows how Chaucer gives a sense of verisimilitude to the Canterbury tales.

'men may warm wex with hands plye.'

Imagery of wax- wants to mould her into his ideal wife- ironic- foreshadows

'Yet were me levere houndes had me eten,/ Than that myn heritage sholde falle/ In straunge hand'

He wants children not due to religion but because he would rather be eaten by hounds than that strangers should inherit his property.

'Wher she be wys, or sobre or dronkelewe,/ Or proud, or ells ootherweys a shrewe, A chidestere, or wastour of thy good' (-Justinus)

Rather than seeing these as individual opinions, they should be recognised as a compilation drawn from contemporary anti-feminist literature. The vices women may show are all associated with inconsistence of some kind, e.g. drunkenness. Chidestere= nagging woman. 'Shrewe' links to PoV of the merchant.

'As whoso tooke a mirour, polished bright, / And sette it in a commune market-place'

Imagery- setting up a mental mirror in a market place. Reinforces the suggestion that there is a lack of substance in his selection of a bride. Market place- financial, material transaction- wife as property. Mirror is a distorted view contributing to theme of blindness. Image of the mirror was commonplace in the literature of the time. Allusion to the anti-feminist book entitled 'Le Miroir de Mariage' (The Mirror of Marriage) by French contemporary Eustace Deschamps. Deschamps' work reflects a very different picture of women from that which is depicted as passing through January's head at this juncture.

'For love is blind alday, and may nat see.'

Metaphorical. Chaucer uses the proverb 'love is blind' to shape his portrait of January as the self-deluding old lecher, whose blindness to the kind of woman he has chosen anticipates his accrual physical blindness.

'Hir fresshe beautee and hir age tender, / Hir middle small, hire armes longe and sklendre, / Hir wise governaunce, hir gentillesse'.

Her attributes are drawn from the classic picture of a desirable woman in courtly romance. Governaunce= self-control and gentillesse= nobility. These qualities are ironic as May is later revealed not to be noble or to have self-control.

'a maiden in the toun'

Euphemism akin to 'of the streets' in present day English.

'Al were it so she were of small degree; / Suffiseth him hir yowthe and hir beautee.'

January has settled for someone of low social standing because of her surpassing physical attraction. The dangers inherent in this, form the PoV of the very hierarchal society of Chaucer's time, that she may be a gold-digger whose behaviour may not be very ladylike.

'she was lyk the brighte morwe of May'

Simile. May's name symbolises youth. Her name suggests more allegorical characterisation- it is now clear that 'winter' is marrying 'late spring'

'Januarie is ravished in a traunce'

Hyperbolic- he is struck in a fantasy. Ravished- violent connotations?

Damyan 'was so ravished on his lady May/ That for the verray peyne he was ny wood'

Parallels Januarie- Chaucer's realism presents all men's concern for sex and women. Damyan is love sick.

'Lyk to the naddre in bosom sly untrewe'

Damyan is compared to an adder, the guise taken by the devil in the Garden of Eden- the archetypal act of wifely betrayal.

'The bride was broght abedde as stille as stoon'

Simile- like a corpse. Scared frigid.

'His fresshe May'

Adjective 'fresshe' initially suggests her beauty, youth and innoncene but throughout the tale it gradually becomes more ironically associated with the sense of sexual precocity.

'She preyseth nat his pleying worth a bene.'

This statement suggests a certain sexual connoisseurship on May's part, not in keeping with her presumed innocence.

'gentil squier'

Januarie ironically repeated calls Damyan 'gentil'- Januarie can only view people in one way- blind to the reality beneath the appearance.

'This purs hath she inwith hir bosom hid'

The letter is transported via May's bosom from the silk purse- emblematic of both of May's relationships: at the outset connected with religion and refined feeling but ultimately concerned with woman as a sexual commodity.

'She rente it al to cloutes ate laste'

She reads it and tears it to shreds- tearing up of the letter conflicts with the romantic notion of the love letter.

'seyde hir clothes dide him encombraunce, / And she obeyeth, be hire life or looth.'

May appears as the passive recipient of Januarie's caresses.

'To love him best of any creature, / Though he namoore hadde than his sherte.'

Decides to be his lover no matter how poor he is- ironic as she is not from a higher class so her motives can be read as the need to find a satisfying sexual partner. The narrator never reports that May has any feelings for either of the men in her life- in this misogynistic narrative, only men experience deeply-felt emotion.

'He made a gardyn, walled al with stoon; / So fair a gardyn woot I nowher noon.'

'Romance of the Rose'

The garden acts as a parody of Eden- Adam and Eve become sexual beings after they were expelled from Eden, whereas Januarie's garden is devised as a place in which he ad May can add variety to their sex life. Literary allusion to the Romance of the Rose.

'he wol no wight suffren bere the keye/ Save he himself; for of the smale wiket/ He baar alwey of silver a clicket'

Only he bared the key. Keys and keyholes are commonly metaphors for sex. Onomatopoeic rhyme- echoes the sound of locking or unlocking

'In somer seson'

Astrological imagery signals that January is in danger: summertime is May's season and the outdoor world is her sphere of influence

'o thou Fortue unstable! / Lyk to the scorpion so deceyvable'

Simile- fortune is compared to the scorpion: scorpion is a symbol of treachery, May as a poison, scorpio (the zodiac sign) governed the male genitals- implies there is a sexual dimension to the misfortune.

'woxen blind'

The physical blindness is a fulfilment of the metaphorical blindness of his self-delusion.

'In warm wex hath emprented the cliket'

Images of impressionability used throughout the poem are now fulfilled through the device of truductio- wax impression links to January wanting to mould her like wax and the impression Damyan instantly made on her.

'clapte to the wiket sodeynly'

Januarie's slamming of the gate anticipates his sudden interruption of the later lovemaking

'of my wifhod thilke tender flour'

Ironic- the passage indicates by metonymy that she is less a slower than a ripe fruit

'I am a gentil woman and no wenche'

May's hypocrisy- she complains about the way women are stereotyped while simultaneously acting out the stereotype.

'with hir finger signes made she/ That Damyan sholde climbe upon a tree, / That charged was with fruit, and up he wente.'

The detail that she used her finger is sexually suggestive. Fruit imagery- associated with sex; fertility, allusion to Garden of Eden; the pear tree features in Chaucer's contemporary Boccaccio's 'The Decameron'

'I moste han of the peres that I see, / Or I moot die'

Hyperbolic- pears are a symbol of sex. Ironically conceals an evident longing to have sex with Damyan.

'He stoupeth down, and on his bak she stood'

Reflects the balance of power. He is both physically and metaphorically under her foot.

'up yaf a roring and a cry,/ As dooth the mooder whan the child shal die'

Woefully inappropriate simile of Januarie's reaction to seeing May and Damyan in the tree. Terminally unsexing for him. Literary reference: in medieval biblical plays, mothers would wail as their baby boys were murdered by Herod's soldiers.

'He kisseth hire, and clippeth hire ful ofte,/ And on hire wombe he stoketh hire ful softe'

May is manipulative. Imagery of Januarie stroking her womb- was she pregnant before climbing the tree? Whose son will inherit Januarie's wealth? The anxiety with which the tale began?

"my little skylark", "my little squirrell", "Miss Sweet Tooth"

terms of endearment x3 (Torvald to Nora, p.2)

"Has my little spendthrift been wasting money again?"

Torvald asks from Nora if she's been spending money (p.2)

"You are going to have a big salary and have lots and lots of money"

Nora is enthusiastic about Torvald's new job (p.2)

"[The year in Italy] saved Torvald's life. But it cost a tremendous lot of money"

Nora talks about saving Torvald's life (p.8)

"a wife cannot borrow without her husband's consent"

Mrs Linde about women borrowing money (p.11)

"Is a wife not to be allowed to save her husband's life? I don't know much about law, but I am certain that there must be laws permitting such things as that"

Nora being surprised that women cannot borrow money (p.24)

"My mother was alive then and was bedridden and helpless, and I had to provide for my two younger brothers; so I did not think I was justified in refusing his offer"

Mrs Linde discusses how she went to her husband (p.8)

"it was a tremendous pleasure to sit there working and earning money. It was like being a man"

Nora explains what it was like for her to work (p.13)

"how painful and humiliating it would be for Torvald, with his manly independence, to know that he owed me anything!"

Nora's explanation on why she does not tell Torvald (p.12)

"Nils, a woman who has once sold herself for another's sake doesn't do it a second time"

Mrs Linde answers to Krogstad that she is not trying to save Nora (p.54)

"an atmosphere of lies infects and poisons the whole life of a home"

Torvald shows how lies affect home (p.27)

"Almost everyone who has gone to the bad early in life has had a deceitful mother"

Torvald explains what effect a deceitful mother has in children (p.27)

"In all these eight years...we have never exchanged a word on any serious subject"

Nora says to Torvald that they don't discuss serious matters (p.66)

"When I look back on it it seems to me as if I have been living here like a poor woman - just from hand to mouth"

Nora describes how her life has felt (p.66)

"I have been your doll wife, just as at home I was Papa's doll child"

Nora on her doll-like existence (p.67)

"sacred duties...to your husband and your children"

Torvald explains woman's duties (p.68)

"I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being just as you are - or, at all events, that I must try and become one"

Nora underlines that she is human as well (p.68)

Helmer: But no man would sacrifice his honor for the one he loves

Nora: It is a thing hundreds of thousands of women have done..

Torvald and Nora's conversation highlighting what is expected from women (p.70)