ABSTRACT
At the very opening of the poem Chaucer shows that he wants his audiences to take Criseyde's social situation seriously. He emphasizes her sense of isolation in Troy at this point in her life, her danger as the daughter of a traitor in a long war, and her immediate need for a male protector. The first interview between Pandarus and Criseyde confirms Chaucer's interest in the processes of interaction between individual consciousness and various social pressures, manipulations and values, often bewilderingly conflicting. Criseyde's natural impulses and fears, her joys and her anxieties, are carefully situated in the context established in the first book. Chaucer stresses how Criseyde's weak and subordinate position, her social heritage as a woman, is made many times worse in the Greek camp. She is a prisoner of the enemy army, much more isolated than in Troy, even at the beginning of Book I, and completely lacking in that most vital of stays - warm human support.
