Notions of power and class can be presented in different ways in literary texts. Some texts seem to take pride in the use of such ideas and ideologies, while others somehow subtly absorb the impressions and insert them into the work. However, conceptions of power and class can still play a huge role in understanding a work in detail. Not only that, but they can also portray the author's feelings and thoughts about things like the class system and stratification of society. Two highly acclaimed literary texts that address ideologies of class and power are Geoffrey Chaucer's The Miller's Tale from the collection The Canterbury Tales and Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent. Before we begin to discuss how issues of power and class are central to understanding The Miller's Tale and Castle Rackrent, we must first try to define exactly what we mean when we talk about the two terms. We should also be able to recognize how power and the class system have functioned and been applied throughout history to gain a better understanding of the intertextuality that gave inspiration to writers like Edgeworth and Chaucer. Both words and their subsequent meanings, as has been suggested above, reflect notions of hierarchy and stratification, or division, of groups of people within the social sphere. Therefore, both expressions can be discussed simultaneously due to their dependence on each other. This is not to suggest that "power" is identical to "class", but simply that the very fact that classes exist in the social system is, according to some, purely related to power. The debate on the class system and its specification has, in fact, extended over time, with the first documented document however...... in the center of the sheet...... says: "An employee had literally bisected his why, / But if he koude a carpenter's bigyle" we get the impression that the class system, both in reality and in the text, is doomed to failure if Nicholas does not capture John's wife. His higher position in society dictates this: John is a humble carpenter while Nicholas is a parish clerk and a passionate astrologer. Likewise this debate within the text may reflect the power struggle in England during the late 14th century. In conclusion, it is very clear that issues of class and power are central to understanding both The Miller's Tale and Castle Rackrent. Each narrator seems to be skillfully crafted from each author's personal experiences: Chaucer as the king's employee and Edgeworth as the overseer of his father's tenants. This leads both texts to strategically question notions of power and class stratification.