The Man of Law's Tale marks in many ways a new beginning in the middle of The Canterbury Tales, a break from the bawdy, secular tales that precede it. While Chaucer could have made it a more direct re-centering of the tales on a Christian theme, Chaucer makes it more complex by introducing a foreign religion, Islam, into the tale. Certainly one of the main questions that arises when a student of Chaucer carefully reads the tale of the Man of Law is "why?" What purpose does Islam serve in this tale, and why only here and not elsewhere in the tale? Articles by Carolyn Dinsaw, Susan Schibanoff, and Kathryn Lynch offer some insights. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Carolyn Dinshaw's article "The Law of Man and its 'Abhomynacions'" literally reads the Man of Law as: "a man composed of law" (118). In the stories, he serves as a representative of ideology It is her duty therefore to tell a story that supports the view of women as subordinate "and dependent on patriarchal protection" (119). patriarchal and those who threaten it2E. The most important members of the latter group are the mothers-in-law, potential or actual, presented in the story. The actions of these women subvert established gender roles and, as Dinshaw argues later in the article , represent the underlying incestuous forces in the narrative. Supporting the interpretation of the Man of Law as a literal representation of the law itself, Dinshaw highlights the legal discourse in the prologue narrative: the Host begins by reminding the Man of Law of his promise to the group. to tell a story, and the Man of Law responds with an agreement to keep his promise. Dinshaw uses this legal foundation of the Lawman's Tale to support his thesis about the commodification not only of his tale, but also of the women in the tale itself: "[f]or the Lawman, the two kinds of profit that tales and the supply of goods – moral and monetary – are inextricably linked” (121). After all, the Man of Law himself insists that he heard the story from an old merchant, which, as Dinshaw points out, reminds us that “ the story comes directly from the world of commerce" (122). The article discusses the role of women as commodities to be exchanged, beginning with an exploration of Custance as narrative and continuing with women exchanged in marriage. The article then turns to to an examination of the incestuous evidence in the tale, from the prologue's insistence that the tale will avoid incest, to the evidence of circumspect delicacy in expurgating the remnants of incest from Chaucer's version compared to other versions ("[i ]in most popular versions of the legend of Constance, the 'accused queen' flees from her father's unwanted sexual advances"). The article ultimately reveals an interesting interpretation of incest in the story: "the jealousy of mothers-in-law, which [the author] read[s] as mothers' potentially incestuous desires for their children" (132). The most interesting thing about this article is that Carolyn Dinshaw reads the very name of the Lawman as fundamental to the meaning of the tale itself. The Man of Law as a representative of the law itself, particularly patriarchal law, lends a certain inclination to a careful reading of the story in this light. His goal in telling the story is to promote the traditional ideal of patriarchal rule. Custody in this tale is “completely subject to ‘mannes government’ and dependent on protectionpatriarchal" (119). In this reading of the Tale of the Man of Law, the Other could be those characters who subvert the traditional patriarchal ideal: mothers-in-law. Diametrically opposed to the patriarchal ideology of the Man of Law, these Women of Law "[they represent] a radical threat to male prerogatives" and "are not so easily ignored or absorbed into the supports of the patriarchal structure" (132). agreement 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 middle of the Canterbury Tales. , "in contrast to the secular romanticism and bawdy fabliaux that constitute the first four tales" (60). But his reading of Man of Law's Tale does not focus on the self-correcting nature of the tale, or its exemplary nature as a model of pilgrimage, but rather on a reading as "Chaucer's only textual comparison with medieval Christianity's strongest religious rival, Islam" as well as his "sole reference to the prophet Muhammad and the Qur'an" (60). In his article, Schibanoff aims to answer the question "why, at this particular juncture of the Canterbury Tales and nowhere else, does Chaucer turn our attention to an alien faith, in a distant place, in a distant time" (60) . What it suggests is that the tale of the Man of Law serves to strengthen Christian brotherhood among the pilgrims by "diverting attention from the potentially explosive class rivalry by confronting the rebellious men... with another world, another time and, ultimately, with the Other, to forge a sense 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 closely intertwined forms in his narrative--as Saracen or Muslim, as woman and as heretic" and he "repeatedly performs a reductive rhetorical maneuver to induce Christian brotherhood among the pilgrims" (61) The Man of Law's reinforcement of Christian brotherhood by describing Islam is done by focusing on Islam's apparent similarities to Christianity rather than about its differences, in what Schibanoff calls the "rhetoric of proximity" that "figures Islam as an insidious heresy that imitates Christianity" (62). By showing the similarities between the mainstream and the Other, fear will incite the audience to broaden the contrast between the two to maintain ideological stability in their separation. The bulk of the article explores the various instances in which the Man of Law exploits the similarity of two entities - Christianity and Islam, male and female - to force the public to reevaluate and reinforce the contrasts between them. Susan Schibanoff's article is straightforward. for the most part, but could stand another pass at the carving knife: he's at his best when concentrating on the story itself, but seems to lose focus along with his reader (at least this one) when he gets lost in discussing the story of the heresy, of the biblical stories of creation. However, we get back on track when we return to discussing the story, so all is not lost. The discussion of the story takes the form of the analysis of his "hermetic argument against the Other" (61), in this case Islam. An interesting twist in this reading of the Lawman's Tale is not that the tale emphasizes the contrasts between the two extremes, but rather their similarities: a "rhetoric of proximity" (62). The narrator portrays the danger of Islam not in its physical and ideological distance from Christianity, but rather in its closeness and.