The Knight's Tale Fate Analysis

From the beginning of time people have always been trying to change fate and get the outcome that the people themselves want to see and experience. This aspect of everyday human life is shown in The Knight's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories. The stories all come together to create a frame story about a group of people taking a pilgrimage. During the pilgrimage they tell each other stories to pass time. The Knight's Tale is one of the tales. The tale is about a Duke named Theseus who finds some grieving widows on his way home to Athens. When he sees the women they tell him that Creon, the leader of Thebes, has killed their noble husbands and would not let them have a proper funeral. Theseus takes action
The knights are names Arcite and Palamon. He imprisons them for life instead of killing them. Arcite and Palamon spot Theseus’s sister in law, Emily, from their prison window and fight over her. They want her to the point that they even put themselves in danger. Arcite returns to Athens after being exiled and Palamon escapes from prison. The two cousins continue fighting till fate decides the outcome in the end. In The Knight's Tale Chaucer uses conflict, foreshadowing, and tragedy to express that humans have the free will to do anything they want, but in the end fate still decides the ultimate outcome. Chaucer uses many examples of conflict in the Knight's Tale to show that you can fight and argue as much as you want, but in the end fate will still decide who will get the victory. One example that Chaucer uses is “With Creon, who was Thebes dread lord and king, He fought and slew him manfully, like knight, In open war, and put his host to fight.”(pg 30). Chaucer uses these lines to express the conflict between Theseus and Creon. In this conflict both of the opponents were nobles who wanted victory. Both of the nobles also believed in themselves and that they would win. Theseus and Creon fought till the
One example of tragedy was in the passage “I was once the wife of King Capaneus who dies at Thebes oh cursed be the day and all we that you see in this array, and make this lamentation to be known all we have lost our husbands at that town. (pg 29). This tragedy is being told by the women that Theseus meets at the beginning of the Knight's Tale. This tragedy was a result of Creon killing their husbands who were noble rulers of Thebes before Creon took over. During this time both the noble husbands and Creon had to use free will to determine whether they were going to attempt the battle or just give up on the spot. They battled for a long while but eventually Creon had fate on his side at that battle and he won the battle. Creon took Thebes and ruled till Theseus helped the women get the bodies of their husbands back and kill off Creon.This tragedy is also important because without this Tragedy Arcite and Palamon wouldn't have seen Emily in the first place. A second example of tragedy in the Knight's Tale is in the passage “Assemble all the people of our blood and wage a war so sharp on this city that by some fortune or by some treaty you shall yet have that lady to your wife.” (pg 37). This was a tragedy for Palamon at the time that he was saying these words. He was