The Canterbury Tales 271his best efforts, coupled with the physical exertion
involved in working what he has come to view as
hopeless land are contributing factors in his early
death. Alexandra, Bergson’s sole daughter, witnesses
her father’s suffering and is determined to make a
success of the land that her father died attempting
to master. This determination is strengthened by
her desire to offer her youngest brother, Emil, the
opportunity of a university education, resulting in a
better life off the farm. Her determination in mak-
ing a success of the land results in the exclusion of
all else—including suffering the loss of love and
companionship.
It is evident that there is a mutual respect and
attraction between Alexandra and Carl Linstrum.
Childhood friends, Alexandra and Carl look to one
another for support throughout the hardships felt by
both of their families in working the land. Seeking a
better life, Carl’s family leaves the prairie, separating
Alexandra from the only person she has come to rely
on for friendship and companionship. Sixteen years
pass before Carl’s return, both of them still suffering
from the loneliness brought on by their separation.
Carl proposes marriage to Alexandra and a new life
off the farm. Although she is tempted to accept his
offer and put an end to her intense loneliness, she
is aware that she has lived too long for the land to
turn her back on it now. Additionally, she does not
wish to suffer the imminent separation from Emil
that would result from her marriage to Carl, so once
again, she loses him as he sets forth alone in search
of a better life.
Alexandra’s devotion to the land causes her to
turn her back on a chance at happiness with Carl
and choose instead to continue in loneliness. Addi-
tionally, her devotion blinds her to human nature as
she fails to see the suffering felt by both Emil and
Marie Shabata in their burgeoning and forbidden
attraction.
Emil and Marie suffer in their love for one
another. Because Marie is a married woman, Emil is
aware that he must contain his feelings for her and
behave as though her attraction toward him is unre-
quited. Just as Emil suffers in his inability to express
his true feelings, Marie suffers in her inability to act
on her attraction to Emil—held back by the fact
that she is married. Although her love for Emil is
genuine, she feels an intense shame in being a mar-
ried woman who pines for another man. Marie does
not wish to cause her husband, Frank, a moment’s
suffering, yet she also does not wish to suffer in her
love for Emil by remaining silent. Emil and Marie
ultimately decide to act on their attraction, leading
to their deaths and to the demise of what their fami-
lies had worked so hard to maintain.
Initially, Frank suffers in his jealousy regard-
ing his suspicion over Marie’s betrayal. Once that
suspicion is confirmed, however, his jealousy turns
to blind rage as he shoots and kills the lovers while
they lie in the grass. Their deaths result in the end
of life as Frank and Alexandra had known it. Once
he acts upon his rage, Frank immediately suffers in
his guilt over killing Marie and Emil, realizing that
if he could relive that moment, he would walk away
and end their silent suffering, leaving them to their
happiness. Though incarcerated, Frank vows that if
he were set free, he would leave Nebraska and never
work the land again.
Like Frank, Alexandra suffers in her guilt. She
blames herself in not noticing and putting an end
to the attraction between Marie and Emil. Once
the cause of Alexandra’s devotion to the land is
destroyed, she takes Carl up on his earlier offer of
marriage, leaving the land she has worked so dili-
gently to maintain.
Elizabeth K. HallerCHAUCER, GEOFFREY The Canter-
bury Tales (ca. 1380s–1400)
The Canterbury Tales, composed sometime between
the late 1380s and Geoffrey Chaucer’s death in
1400, is arguably one of the most innovative narra-
tive works in English literary history. Drawing on,
and elaborately reworking, a wide range of sources
as diverse as classical myths, saints’ lives, romances
and beast fables, The Canterbury Tales has, in turn,
influenced and inspired countless works in differ-
ent media, from Shakespeare’s plays to postmodern
films. The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories
held together by the narrative frame of a pilgrim-
age to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury
in the course of which the pilgrims, a cross sec-
tion of medieval society, engage in a storytelling