This is a very critical moment in that the Host halts the speech in which the Reeve tries to purge himself of all that has been festering inside of him. The Reeve is an old man close to death and is scared. He feels that he has nothing noble left in him. Just as he can find no satis-faction for his desire through his feeble body, he can find no release for his pent-up emotions because he is always being silenced. He will soon be silenced forever, and yet is still not al-lowed to voice this or anything of significance while is he alive. Chaucer may only portray the Reeves treatment by this one group and only for a short time span, but it is reasonable to as-sume that this is a pattern in his life. Why else would a quiet man mention his sexual prob-lems to a group of relative strangers unless his family and acquaintances were also unwilling to listen and he was desperate to speak it? Therefore, because of this life-long recurrence of being silenced, he suppressed his feelings. The Reeve is not artistic, preferring the practical over the aesthetic, so when others refuse to listen, he has no choice but to keep his emotions to himself, there being no other outlet such as art or music in which to channel this. As a re-sult, when he believes he is permitted to speak about whatever he wishes, he lets loose all that has been locked inside of him and gives his morose monologue. But the Host denies him this relief, demanding that he must now tell a story. As expected, the Reeve does not give a hu-morous account similar to the Miller. Instead he directs his anger and his unexpressed emo-tions into his tale. This is the reason why his story is so vindictive. This explains his prayer that the Miller, who previously described how a carpenter was cuckolded (a very real fear for the married Reeve because of h...
