# The Miller — The Canterbury Tales character guide

> The Miller in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.

**Role:** supporting

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

## Snapshot

A red-bearded, ale-soaked miller who steals corn and breaks down doors, he barges in with a bawdy tale about a carpenter's wife.

## Who they are

Drunk on the pilgrimage and proud of his strength, he insists on telling the second tale despite the Host's protests, and his story of Alison, Nicholas, and Absolon mocks the Reeve's trade and the Knight's courtly manners alike. His tale's crude energy and its target — an old carpenter — set off a chain of retaliatory stories that turns the pilgrimage into a contest of insults. He matters because he shatters the decorum the Knight established and reveals how quickly the fellowship can turn on itself.

## In the story

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

Tells this ribald tale, interrupting the Knight's story.

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

Drunk and pale, he insists on telling a tale to 'quite' the Knight's, despite the Host's and Reeve's objections.

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

Referenced as the one who told the tale that offended the Reeve.

## Links

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