“City, Court or Country: a writer’s setting is always significant.” Discuss how far you agree with this view, in relation to 'The Merchant's Tale'

Setting is of great importance in The Merchant's Tale, as the majority of the the action, notably the all-important cuckolding scene, unfolds in the walled garden, a not so oblique satire of the Garden of Eden. The theme of marriage runs deeply through the Merchant's tale but is explored across all of The Canterbury Tales, including famous examples such as the Knight and the Wife of Bath. Nature is the instigator for the pilgrimage itself ("so pricketh hem nature in hir corages;/ Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages"), and so we feel, as in the words of Laurence Coup, this act "is not only a religious ritual but also a natural activity for us as human beings. The idea that nature provokes the desire to commence an activity of faith is a celebration of the connection between God and his creation, which reflects on the heavy Christian ideology of the late fourteenth century (Chaucer's period of writing). The walled garden of the poem provides religious symbolism as it is in itself a parody of the Garden of Eden. By presenting this image, Chaucer creates a foreshadowing throughout the poem as the reader is influenced to draw parallels between the Fall of Man and the unfolding plot of the Tale. For January, marriage is "but a paradys": a view not wholly shared by the Merchant (who is burdened with a "labbying shrewe" of a wife) who nevertheless expresses it with sardonic irony. A garden presents paradise, temptation and pleasure; while for January, the garden fulfils this description, for his wife May it is a prison (although also a temptation given that it is where she consummates her relationship with Damyan, and cuckolds January in the process). May's entrapment ; the harsh consonant sounds in the rhyming of the word "clyket" and "wyket" mimics that of a door locking shut, which further enhances May's imprisonment in the garden.