what is the theme of the physician tale
The Physician's Tale There are a few recurring themes in Chaucer’s “the Physician’s Tale” such as consent and sacrifice. On the subject of consent, many critics have noted that, in the original versions of the story, Virginia was not given the choice of whether she could live or not. For example, Lianna Farber in her essay “the Creation of Consent in the Physician’s Tale” the detail of Virginia’s consent to death “appears neither in Chaucer’s stated source, Livy’s history, which Chaucer may or may not have known, nor in his unstated source, Jean de Meun’s Roman de la Rose, which Chaucer most certainly did know” (151) meaning that Chaucer added the detail to the story himself. Chaucer’s goal in giving Virginia a choice in his version of the tale is unclear. In fact, some even wonder if Virginia truly had a choice to begin with. Once again, Lianna Farber in “The Creation of Consent in the Physician’s Tale” points out a flaw in Virginius’s ultimatum of death or dishonor: “These alternatives are problematic because there would presumably be many other ways to deal with the situation: Virginia could run away; she could go into hiding; Virginius could stall for time while he called together all their friends who were pointedly mentioned when we were introduced to Virginius; and on and on” (158). Even further still, some argue that the purpose of Virginia’s death is to highlight Virginius’s ineptitude as a father. Once again, Farber states that Virginius’s ultimatum to his daughter would have been seen as bad parenting saying:“It turns out, audiences of the story other than the Host tend to agree, that this is bad governance” (159). However, Farber also argues in the other direction saying that “the responsibility does not lie entirely with Virginius: Virginia embraces her father’s logic as well as his power and, voicing both, consents to her own death” (159).