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Knight's Tale By Chaucer The Term Paper

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By association, he is implying that he is a man of action rather than words, which is a logical extension of his occupation as Knight. One might, however, question, why he focuses his attention on the comfort of his companions rather than simply stating that he is not inclined to make his tale too long for his own reasons. Indeed, he claims that he "would also not hinder any of this company." This casts doubt on the Knight's honesty, since it is highly unlikely that his reasons for keeping the details he mentions out of his tale are purely unselfish. It could be that he uses these statements to conceal what the company might perceive as a flaw in his narrative, in that it somewhat lacks imagination. When considering the details of what the Knight claims not to have time for, it becomes clear that such tales would be filled with action (Theseus and his knightly valor and the various battles), beauty (the wedding-feast), and...

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These events would require strong powers of description. By in fact mentioning these events without describing them, the Knight creates the idea that he does have powers of description, but not the time to use them. This is ironic in the light of the fact that the rest of the story is quite long.
In conclusion, it appears that the Knight, like many others in the company, has a somewhat high opinion of himself, his strength, the difficulty of his work, and the way in which others see him. For this reason, he uses what devices he has at his disposal to make his tale as interesting as he can without in fact highlighting his own flaws. Instead, he hides his fundamental flaws under the use of narrative devices in order to impress his hearers. When this fundamental dishonesty is revealed, the Knight becomes far less revered in the mind of the reader than the case might otherwise have been.

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