Suppression and silence in The Reeve's TaleComments such as "I pray to God that his nekke mote to-breke" quickly reveal that the verbal play of "quite" involves much more than a free meal at the Reeve in “The Canterbury Tales” (I 3918). This overreaction, which attracts the audience's attention and makes them think, is characteristic of Reeve's seemingly strange behavior, who indulges in dark speeches followed by violent outbursts, all the while harboring spiteful desires. Anger characterizes Reeve's dialogue and his narrative, which raises the question of why. It appears to be a reaction to Miller's insults, but they are not extreme enough to cause such resentment. He apparently has no hesitation in articulating his bitterness, yet he and his story are marked as much by repression as by expression. The silence rings as loudly as any noise in Reeve's prologue and tale. The reader is perplexed as much by his expressions as by the lack of them: his sudden sermon on death is accompanied by the quiet of two couples mating in a small room of five people, none of whom are able to hear what the others are doing . The reality is that the behavior of Reeve and the characters in his story is not random or inexplicable. The Reeve is continually silenced by the other pilgrims and himself, which is paralleled in his account, and in turn suppresses his emotions, which leads to even more explosive conduct. Characterization To appreciate Reeve's melancholic and serious temperament, it is necessary to see him in comparison to other characters, as Chaucer intended. Pilgrim identities are relative. They are characterized by their description in the General Prologue, but are not fully developed until they are seen in contrast to the pilgrim they are "leaving". As the Miller's personality is developed by his dissimilarity to the Knight, so is the Miller's Reeve. Therefore Robin's enjoyment of life shows how little Oswald receives from it. For example, the Miller's stocky build and excessive drinking show his delight in small pleasures. The Reeve, however, is "a sclendre colerik man" who controls his beard and hair (as opposed to the unruly locks that grow on a wart on the miller's nose) with the same manipulation of the accounts of the farm on which he works (I 587). The Miller mastered the bagpipe for entertainment in his spare time while the Reeve trained with more practical instruments: "In his youth he had learned a good master: he was a good writer, a carpenter" (I 614).