Character of Criseyde

The most complex character among the three major characters of Troilus and Criseyde is Criseyde herself. She is unity in diversity. Her attitudes and the behavior are guided by one factor-the law of necessity. She represents all the womanly qualities which we still find among them. Her character is observed from different comers and critics have entitled her to be what Shakespeare says,

“Frailty thy name is women”.

Criseyde is the boldest reconstruction and has proved rather a puzzle to many of Chaucer’s critics. Boccaccio’s heroine is a light skirt whose sole requirement is secrecy. To Chaucer, she is the woman in love with all a woman’s natural weakness. The ebb and flow of her feelings from the first visit of Pandarus to her final yielding are described with a subtlety of thought into the working of woman’s; heart. She lives in Troy nominally but belongs to the fourteenth century England in practice. She lives in a society where love is the greatest of earthly goods and love has nothing to do with marriage. She is a widow and her father leaves her helpless as he goes over to the enemy of Troy, being branded as a traitor. So, her position is overcast with doubt and suspicion. So, she goes to Hector the noble for protection. Thus, she acts wisely by choosing the right person to protect her.

The love she hears for Troilus was uninfected. It was sincere and sacred although she in the end betrayed him. C.S.Lewis has tried to explain the betrayal of Criseyde and explore the logical connection which compelled her to such an action. He terms her ‘fear’ to be the fatality of her being. Her deep sense of fear became the ruling passion of her character. According to this critic, Criseyde becomes a true tragic character” in the Aristotelian sense because the flaw in her character is fear which she cannot overcome.

Criseyde‘s role as the figure of change does not deny her reality as a person. She was ‘fearful’ circumspect, cautious from the first; slow to yield, complete in yielding. It is ‘for the beste’ that she wages compliance with ‘Fate’. As she persuades Troilus to believe in her powers of managing the future.

"Er days ten’ .she promises ‘I shall ben here’ '

And treweliche, as writen wel I fynde "

Criseyde is an embodiment of practical wisdom she does not accept the change easily, examines its pros and cons seriously and then takes a decision seriously and executes it perfectly. When she decides to yield to Troilus, she tells him that she has already decided to yield.

Criseyde is the fate of Troilus. She is his worldly joy. She is that which conditions the mortal state. The law of necessity is not bound by any limit. It operates in every one’s life and Criseyde neither is nor can be, an exception to it.