Well, The Reeve’s Tale is definitely something. I wasn’t wholly prepared for that, but anyway I agree that The Reeve’s Tale needs to be read in context with the Miller’s Tale, otherwise its just uncomfortable. Also, when taken out of context the reader misses the work that Chaucer does to allow his character’s to interact. At this point we have seen two vastly different approaches to story telling with the knight and the miller and now we are faced with the Reeve, who tells his story in a similar fashion to the Miller, but with a very clear commentary on the previous story. The one thing that stood out the most to me when reading this tale was the idea of revenge. The Reeve is trying to get back at the Miller by telling a tale he thinks will offend him, but knowing the Miller’s personality that seems unlikely. In the story, however, we see the same sort of thing. Aleyn and John take revenge on the miller for stealing and releasing their horses by sleeping with daughter and the wife. The idea of revenge here seems totally unjustified to me, but clearly Aleyn sees it differently when he says “Ther is a lawe that says thus:/ that gif a man in a point be ygreved,/ that in another he sal be releved” (4180-4182). Essentially the mentality is an eye for an eye, but the value of the objects seems unbalanced to me.