The Narrator
An observant pilgrim who joins the company at the Tabard Inn and sketches each traveller with deadpan irony — praising vice and virtue in the same breath.
- Appears in:
- Part 1: April at the Tabard Inn
Who drives the story
Main characters
Harry Bailey
The Host, who proposes the storytelling contest and holds the power of the free supper over every pilgrim's head.
- Appears in:
- Part 1: April at the Tabard Inn
The Knight
A worthy man who has fought at Alexandria and in Prussia, meek as a maid, whose noble romance of Palamon and Arcite opens the contest.
- Appears in:
- Part 1: April at the Tabard Inn
- Part 2: The Knight's Tale: Love, Fortune, and a Falling Saddle-Bow
- Part 4: The Wife of Bath and the Pardoner: Mastery, Money, and Death
- Themes:
- Sovereignty in marriage
- Fortune's reversals
The Miller
A stout churl with a red beard and a wart with a tuft of hairs red as the bristles of a sow's ears, who plays the bagpipes, leads the company out of town, and answers the Knight with a cuckold's farce.
- Appears in:
- Part 1: April at the Tabard Inn
The Wife of Bath
Somewhat deaf, bold-faced, five times married at the church door, she argues that experience beats authority and wins sovereignty over her fifth husband, Jankyn.
- Appears in:
- Part 1: April at the Tabard Inn
- Part 3: The Miller's Tale: A Flood That Never Came
- Part 4: The Wife of Bath and the Pardoner: Mastery, Money, and Death
- Themes:
- Experience versus authority
- Sovereignty in marriage
Also in the story
Supporting characters
The Pardoner
A shameless fraud who preaches against avarice to pocket pennies, then tells a tale in which greed kills three men under an oak tree.
- Appears in:
- Part 4: The Wife of Bath and the Pardoner: Mastery, Money, and Death
- Themes:
- Greed as self-destruction
- Hypocrisy dressed in holy clothes
Palamon and Arcite
Theban knights of royal blood imprisoned by Theseus, whose sworn brotherhood collapses into rivalry over Emily — resolved only by a tournament and a fatal fall.
- Appears in:
- Part 2: The Knight's Tale: Love, Fortune, and a Falling Saddle-Bow
- Themes:
- Fortune's reversals
Nicholas and Alison
The scholar and the carpenter's young wife who stage a fake flood to sleep together, leaving old John with a broken arm and the neighbours laughing.
- Appears in:
- Part 3: The Miller's Tale: A Flood That Never Came
How they are connected
Key relationships
A worthy man who has fought at Alexandria and in Prussia, meek as a maid, whose noble romance of Palamon and Arcite opens the contest.
A stout churl with a red beard and a wart with a tuft of hairs red as the bristles of a sow's ears, who plays the bagpipes, leads the company out of town, and answers the Knight with a cuckold's farce.
Nicholas and AlisonThe Wife of Bath
The scholar and the carpenter's young wife who stage a fake flood to sleep together, leaving old John with a broken arm and the neighbours laughing.
Go deeper
Telling Tales themes & symbols
Experience versus authority · Sovereignty in marriage · Greed as self-destruction · Hypocrisy dressed in holy clothes
Themes explainedRead the full Telling Tales summary
The full story act by act, the ending explained and a quick quiz.
Open the summary