# The Merchant — The Canterbury Tales character guide

> The Merchant in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0000-the-prologue

## Snapshot

A forked-bearded trader in motley who boasts of his profits and his wife's failings, then tells a tale of marriage gone sour.

## Who they are

The Merchant sits high on his horse, dressed in a Flemish beaver hat and daintily buckled boots, forever talking up his gains and hiding his debts. He claims he could never describe the misery of his own marriage, yet he tells a tale of January, an old knight who blinds himself to his young wife's treachery. His bitterness about wedded life gives the pilgrimage one of its sharpest, funniest, and most cynical turns.

## In the story

### [The Merchant's Tale](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_canterbury_tales_se/chapters/the-merchant-s-tale)

The narrator of this tale, who speaks bitterly about marriage from his own unhappy experience.

### [The Prologue](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_canterbury_tales_se/chapters/the-prologue)

The Merchant speaks of his miserable marriage, calling his wife the worst that may be and overmatching the fiend.

### [The Shipman’s Tale](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_canterbury_tales_se/chapters/the-shipman-s-tale)

A wealthy merchant who is deceived by his wife and a monk.

### [The Merchant's Tale](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_canterbury_tales_se/chapters/the-tale)

The wealthy merchant who trusts his wife and cousin, but is deceived by both.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_canterbury_tales_se/characters/merchant
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_canterbury_tales_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_canterbury_tales_se/characters