How does Chaucer in 'The Merchant's Tale' explore the importance of individual identity?

To tackle this question you need to consider how the genre Chaucer chooses affects his presentation of characters, the extent to which his characters are individuals or just part of their assigned group (eg. women, poor etc) and how his characters' identities shift or are malleable in response to their surroundings.It would be good to start the response to this question by exploring the fabliau genre; 'The Merchant's Tale' is a fabliau and so is much more base and bawdy than alternatives; Chaucer doesn't attempt to dig deep into the intricacies of multifaceted individuals but suggests that they, like his genre, are superficial and two-dimensional, almost comic. This then suggests that his characters are less individuals and more representative of types or groups that Chaucer mocks.Having done this, it is interesting to consider the group identities that are created by the individuals within the Tales; all women, for example, are coloured by the Merchant's misogyny 'She is shrewe et al' and thus May lacks individuality as she is passive and a possession; she comes to bed 'as still as stoon' but also a stereotypical deceitful woman as she makes January a 'cuckwold' and thus conforms to classical and Biblical presentations of women. I would argue that May is an example of Chaucer's disregard for the importance of individual identity, as she is lost in a literary background of adulterous women. This argument benefits, however, from consideration of the change that each individual undergoes through the Tale; while the Merchant stays constant in his misogyny, May does develop in response to both the more romantic love of Damyan, who was in 'verray peyne' and Proserpina's proto-feminist rebellion 'What rekketh me of youre auctoritee?' suggesting that the position of women, both as a social group and as individuals, can change and that Chaucer is progressive in his views.