The Lawman's Tale marks in many ways a new departure from the Canterbury Tales, a break from the tales of debauchery and secularists who precede him. While Chaucer could have made this a more direct refocusing of the tales on a Christian theme, Chaucer makes it more complex by introducing a foreign religion, Islam, into the tale. Surely one of the major questions that arises when a student of Chaucer carefully reads The Man of Law's Tale is "why?" » What is the purpose of Islam in this story, and why only here, and not in other places in the story? Articles by Carolyn Dinsaw, Susan Schibanoff, and Kathryn Lynch offer insight. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Carolyn Dinshaw's article "The Law of Man and its 'Abhomynacions'" reads the man of law literally: "a man composed of law" (118). In the tales, he serves as a representative of patriarchal ideology itself. It is therefore her duty to tell a story that supports the idea that women are subordinate to “and dependent on patriarchal protection” (119). The characters in his story therefore fall into the required binary categories: those who correspond to the traditional patriarchal structure and those who threaten it2E. The most notable members of the latter group are the mothers-in-law, potential or actual, featured in the tale. The actions of these women subvert established gender roles and, as Dinshaw argues later in the article, represent underlying incestual forces in the narrative. Supporting the interpretation of the Man of Law as a literal representation of the law itself, Dinshaw emphasizes the legal discourse in the narrative. prologue: the host begins by reminding the lawman of his promise to the group to tell a story, and the lawman responds with agreement to keep his promise. Dinshaw uses this legal basis of the Man of Law's Tale to support his argument of commodification not only of his story, but also of the women in the tale itself: "[f]or the Man of Law, the two types of profit that tales and commodities offer – moral and monetary – are indissolubly linked” (121). After all, the lawyer himself insists that he heard the story from an old merchant, which, as Dinshaw points out, reminds us that "the story comes to us directly from the world of commerce” (122). women as commodities to be exchanged, beginning with an exploration of Custance as a narrative and progressing to women exchanged within marriage. The article then turns to an examination of the incestual evidence in the tale, from the prologue's insistence that the tale will avoid incest, to the evidence of circumspect delinquency in the redaction of the remains of the incest of Chaucer's version compared to other versions ("[i]n the most popular versions of the Constantius legend, the 'accused queen' flees the unwanted sexual advances of her father"). The article ultimately uncovers an interesting interpretation of incest in the tale: "the jealousy of mothers-in-law, which [the author] interprets as potentially incestuous desires of mothers for their sons" (132) What is most interesting about this article is that Carolyn. Dinshaw sees the name of the Lawman as fundamental to the meaning of the tale itself. The Man of Law as a representative of law itself, specifically patriarchal law, provides some direction for close reading. of the story from this angle. Her goal in telling this story is to advance the traditional ideal of patriarchal domination.Custance in this story is “entirely subject to ‘mannes governance’ and dependent on patriarchal protection” (119). In this reading of the Tale of the Man of Law, the Other could be those characters who upset the traditional patriarchal ideal: the mothers-in-law. Diametrically opposed to the patriarchal ideology of the Man of Law, these Women of Law “pose a radical threat to male prerogative” and “are not so easily ignored or absorbed by the supports of the patriarchal structure” ( 132). Although I'm not entirely convinced of the incestuous undertones that Dinshaw says permeate the narrative, I agree with much of his interpretation. Susan Schibanoff's article "Worlds Apart: Orientalism, Antifeminism, and Heresy in Chaucer's Man of Law's Tale" begins with a discussion of the tale as a "new beginning" in the midst of The Canterbury Tales, "in contrast to secular romance and debauchery.” fabliaux which constitute the first four tales” (60). But his reading of The Lawyer's Tale focuses not on the self-correcting character of the tale, nor on its exemplary character as a model of pilgrimage, but rather on a reading as "Chaucer's only textual confrontation with the religious rival the most powerful of medieval Christianity, Islam” as well as “Chaucer’s only reference to the Prophet Muhammad and the Koran” (60). In his article, Schibanoff aims to answer the question “why?” at this precise moment in The Canterbury Tales and nowhere else does Chaucer turn our attention to a foreign faith, to a distant place, to a distant time” (60). What she suggests is that the Man of Law's narrative serves to strengthen Christian brotherhood among the pilgrims by "diverting attention from potentially explosive class rivalry by confronting rebellious men...with a another world, in another time and, ultimately, in the Other, in order to forge a feeling of community” (61). Schibanoff argues that it is the Other that the Man of Law uses to strengthen the Christian brotherhood of the pilgrims: he “constructs the Other in forms closely intertwined in his narrative. -as Saracen or Muslim, as woman and as heretic" and he "repeatedly executes a reductive rhetorical maneuver to induce Christian brotherhood among the pilgrims" (61). The reinforcement of Christian brotherhood by the Man of Law by describing Islam is carried out by emphasizing Islam's apparent similarities with Christianity rather than its differences, in what Schibanoff calls the "rhetoric of proximity" which "presents Islam as an insidious heresy which imitates Islam” (62) By showing the similarities between the mainstream and the Other, fear will encourage the public to widen the contrast between the two to maintain ideological stability in their separation. The article explores the various instances where the Man of Law exploits the similarity of two entities - Christianity and Islam, masculine and feminine - in order to force the audience to re-evaluate and reinforce the contrasts between them. Susan Schibanoff's article is simple. for the most part, but could resist another pass with the carving knife: he is at his best when he concentrates on the tale itself, but seems to lose his attention with his reader (at least this one) when he strays into discussing the history of heresy, the biblical creation stories. However, he gets back on track when he returns to discussing the tale, so all is not lost. The discussion of the tale takes the form of an analysis of its “hermetic case against the Other” (61), in this case Islam. An interesting twist in this reading of the Man of Law's Tale is not that the tale highlights the contrasts between the two.