Genre in The Man of Law’s Tale

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Trivet’s story. Paul Beichner and John Yunk both discuss the anti-Christian forces against which Custance is faced. In Custance’s tragic story (though comic at the end, by Medieval definition) Chaucer’s use of pathos, miracles, and anti-christian forces are all aspects of the genre of hagiography.
Custance’s story exhibits pathos and contains elements of hagiography except, she is not made a martyr in the end. The Man of Law’s Tale repeats the motif of pathos through Custance’s suffering. Custance suffers by three subtopic of pathos: the first is tragedy, the second is isolation, and the third is emotional exclamation. As a subtopic under the characteristics of pathos she is made a tragic character by her fall from a high position. She is made an example of isolation, which is a subtopic of pathos, when she is put on the rudderless boat out of Syria. Her emotional exclamation is a subtopic of pathos through her emotional distress. Chaucer focuses on her suffering to create the ...

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illustrate Constance’s saint-like comparison by explaining that she is more pious than other women of her time. He describes her isolation through what Frank calls, “one of his starkest, most moving passages:” Chaucer exclaims, “Allas! Custance, thou hast no champioun’ (631). Frank is arguing that Chaucer describes Constance as isolated in order to show that she is saintly and she is not a relatable character. No other woman in Chaucer’s works is as isolated as Custance when she is sent off on her own in a boat with an infant to survive on her own. Her survival on the boat is one of many miracles she witnesses.
The fact that Custance witnesses and is saved by miracles is very central ...

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