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The canterbury tales explanatory essay
The canterbury tales explanatory essay
The canterbury tales explanatory essay
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Hypocrisy in Canterbury Tales The Canterbury Tales is full of different stories about a variety of different people. Some of the characters in these stories show behavior that does not reflect the way they should be behaving. It seems as though Geoffrey Chaucer wanted this to be a theme throughout the literary piece. But why would he want so many of his characters to be hypocrites? Chaucer may have wanted to show the readers what kind of person not to be, or show that one’s words and actions have effects on not only you but others. Also, considering when the Middle English Canterbury Tales was brought up, religious controversy may have had an effect on his choice of writing as well. The two characters I am choosing to discuss that specifically show signs of hypocrisy are The Pardoner and the two students in The Miller’s Tale. When trying to think of an example of hypocrisy in The Canterbury Tales almost every story comes to mind. I first thought of The Miller’s Tale. The theme of hypocrisy is not as strong in this story but definitely stuck out to me as I was reading. The Miller’s Tale is about four main characters: John (the carpenter), Alisoun (John’s wife), Nicholas (student), and Absolon (student). The two characters that stood out as hypocritical to me …show more content…
The pardoner shows major hypocrisy through his actions by being someone of authority in the church but coming off as very untrustworthy. He is a thief, a liar, and a fraud and is open about all of this to the people. He admits that he is only doing what he does for money. He tells this comical story to the pilgrims and is really just describing his tactics and letting the people know that he thinks he is doing no wrong. He is literally preaching but doing the opposite of what he preaches. Chaucer could have included this story to tell readers to be careful who they trust and that fraud surrounds us if we aren’t careful with what we choose to
Chaucer was "not a reformer" or "satirist" whose goal is to reform the church. He merely wished to use different characters to tell his stories. Kittredge also mentions how the pardoner is not drunk when telling his tale, as only one draught of ale was consumed, not nearly enough to intoxicate a seasoned drinker like the pardoner. Through his reasoning, Kittredge concludes that the pardoner's foolish confession, in fact, has a purpose for the story. While the pardoner may seem foolish to reveal his sins and hypocrisies, there is reasoning behind this madness.
...nations of his thought processes, it is clear that the Pardoner does not practice what he preaches. It is ambiguous, however, as to whether the Pardoner believes what he preaches, but just doesn’t follow his preaches or whether he doesn’t believe what he preaches at all. It is evident, though, that the Pardoner has an astute mind. He is highly effective in what he does. Although he exploits the church for his own personal designs, he succeeds at obtaining that which he pursues. The efficacy of his strategy is confirmed by Chaucer’s description of the Pardoner as being a “noble ecclesiastic” and as being unmatched in his trade . Thus amidst all of his flatteries, there exists a spark of genius that complements his minimal level of ethics. This intellectual finesse is the riverbed from which all of the products of his mind flow.
The Pardoner may or may not believe it. If he does, he will. clearly doesn't care: after his tale is over, he proceeds to the height of audacious mockery -- of himself and of the pilgrims -- by hocking his relics to the pilgrims to whom he has just revealed. entire cynical fraud of the sex. But does Chaucer believe that the moral of the tale applies to the Pardoner.
The Pardoner is the best representation of an allegorical character in “The Prologue” of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. The Pardoner is the perfect personification of fraudulence. He shows this in three basic ways: his appearance, speech, and actions. If one just glances through the reading of the Pardoner than one will think that he is a good religious man, but if one look further into it than he will find the small double meanings that he is the exact opposite. Chaucer likes to use an allegorical style to add some comedy and sophistication to his writings.
The Pardoner does the opposite of that. When the Pardoner sells a pardon instead of giving the money to the church or donating it he keeps it for himself. This is totally against integrity and shows again why the Pardoner is not honest. Cheating is another word that is important with the word honesty because it is the opposite of it. To cheat someone is to wrong them with or without their knowledge. The Pardoner does this buy selling his so called “relics” when really they are just fake and he is just trying to get more money. As Chaucer (1476) himself said in the Pardoner’s prologue “he made the parson and the people his apes” (line 705). The Pardoner is a cheater and a scammer these are qualities that an honest person has, an example of an honest person is Abraham Lincoln, he was also sometimes referred to as “Honest Abe” or supposed honest
The Virtue of Men and Women in The Canterbury Tales People never change. In every town you will always be able to find the "rich guy," the "smart guy," the "thief," and the "chief." It has been that way since the first man was swindled out of his lunch. Throughout his life, Geoffrey Chaucer encountered every kind of person and brought them to life for us in "The Canterbury Tales," a collection of short stories written in the 1300's. There are tales of saints, tales of promiscuity, tales of fraud, and tales of love.
However, after hearing his tale it is quite shocking about his frankness about his own hypocrisy. We know that he bluntly accuses himself of fraud, avarice, and gluttony, all things that he preaches against throughout this tale. It is in lines, 432-433 that the Pardoner states, “But that is not my principal intent; I preach nothing but for convenience.” It is here that we truly begin to learn that The Pardoner’s Tale is merely an example of a story that is often used by preachers to emphasize a moral point to their audience. That is why, this tale in particular helps to comprehend Chaucer’s own opinions, and how he used satire to display them.
The Canterbury Tales is a literary masterpiece in which the brilliant author Geoffrey Chaucer sought out to accomplish various goals. Chaucer wrote his tales during the late 1300’s. This puts him right at the beginning of the decline of the Middle Ages. Historically, we know that a middle class was just starting to take shape at this time, due to the emerging commerce industry. Chaucer was able to see the importance and future success of the middle class, and wrote his work with them in mind. Knowing that the middle class was not interested in lofty philosophical literature, Chaucer wrote his work as an extremely comical and entertaining piece that would be more interesting to his audience. Also, Chaucer tried to reach the middle class by writing The Canterbury Tales in English, the language of the middle class rather than French, the language of the educated upper class. The most impressive aspect of Chaucer’s writing is how he incorporated into his piece some of his own controversial views of society, but yet kept it very entertaining and light on the surface level. One of the most prevalent of these ideas was his view that certain aspects of the church had become corrupt. This idea sharply contrasted previous Middle Age thought, which excepted the church’s absolute power and goodness unquestionably. He used corrupt church officials in his tales to illustrate to his audience that certain aspects of the church needed to be reformed. The most intriguing of these characters was the Pardoner. Chaucer’s satirical account of the Pardoner is written in a very matter-of-fact manner that made it even more unsettling with his audience. Chaucer uses his straightforwardness regarding the hypocrisy of the Pardoner, suggestive physiognomy of the character, and an interesting scene at the conclusion of the Pardoner’s Tale to inculcate his views of the church to his audience. The way that Chaucer used these literary devices to subtly make his views known to an audience while hooking them with entertainment, shows that Chaucer was truly a literary genius.
We have all heard the common adage “Practice what you preach.” Another version of this sentiment can be found in the saying “You cannot just talk the talk; you must walk the walk.” In other words, it is commonly considered useless for one to talk about doing something or living a certain way if he does not actually live out those words. It is overall a sentiment that denounces hypocrisy. This idea is explored by Geoffrey Chaucer in his “Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale,” as well as the Introduction to the tale. Chaucer identifies a pardoner as his main character for the story and utilizes the situational and verbal irony found in the pardoner’s interactions and deplorable personality to demonstrate his belief in the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church during this time.
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is a collection of stories by a group of pilgrims who are heading to Canterbury Cathedral. In this book, the pardoner and the reeve show antipodal characters in many ways. The pardoner is beautiful blonde hair man who is being loved by everyone. However he is very corrupted and smart and sells fake religious stuff to people saying very good compliment. On the other hand, the reeve is very serious and honest business man. He is very smart enough to know what criminals think and do. The pardoner story-tells a great example (or tale?) of seven deadly sins and reeve’s story is mocking of the miller. These very different characteristic men tell story telling that human beings are always punished for being greedy. The crooked pardoner and the honest reeve have different purposes for telling their tales, but their stories have the same major theme; sins deserve punishment.
The monk receives some scathing sarcasm in Chaucer’s judgment of his new world ways and the garments he wears “With fur of grey, the finest in the land; Also, to fasten hood beneath his chin, He had of good wrought gold a curious pin: A love-knot in the larger end there was.” (194-197, Chaucer). The Friar is described as being full of gossip and willing to accept money to absolve sins, quite the opposite of what a servant of God should be like. Chaucer further describes the friar as being a frequenter of bars and intimate in his knowledge of bar maids and nobles alike. The friar seems to be the character that Chaucer dislikes the most, he describes him as everything he should not be based on his profession. The Pardoner as well seems to draw special attention from Chaucer who describes him as a man selling falsities in the hopes of turning a profit “But with these relics, when he came upon Some simple parson, then this paragon In that one day more money stood to gain Than the poor dupe in two months could attain.” (703-706, Chaucer). Chaucer’s description of the pardoner paints the image of a somewhat “sleazy” individual “This pardoner had hair as yellow as wax, But lank it hung as does a strike of flax; In wisps hung down such locks as he 'd on head, And with them he his shoulders overspread; But thin they dropped, and stringy, one by one.” (677-681,
The Canterbury Tales is a great contemplation of stories, that display humorous and ironic examples of medieval life, which imitate moral and ethical problems in history and even those presented today. Chaucer owed a great deal to the authors who produced these works before his time. Chaucer tweaked their materials, gave them new meanings and revealed unscathed truths, thus providing fresh ideas to his readers. Chaucer's main goal for these tales was to create settings in which people can relate, to portray lessons and the irony of human existence.
In the “General Prologue” of The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer indirectly denounces the church describing that they are corrupt, greedy, hypocritical, and selective. The people that have some sort of relation to the church are The Prioress, The Nun, The Priest, The Friar, The Monk, The Parson, The Summoner and The Pardoner. The “General Prologue describes each of the pilgrims and their general traits. Some characters are described more than others because of the fact that Chaucer likes people who are affluent, beautiful and noble. The problem with some of the characters that were described by Chaucer is that they were negatively viewed based on stereotypes and appearance. Overall, Chaucer wants the readers to know that the church people are corrupt and deceptive. Chaucer wants the reader to understand that most of the church people do not live their life by the holy book.
Geoffrey Chaucer was a on a mission when he wrote The Canterbury Tales. That mission was to create a satire that attacked three major institutions. Raphel displays, “Medieval society was divided into three estates: the Church (those who prayed), the Nobility (those who fought), and the Patriarchy. The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales is an estates satire.” Chaucer wanted to shed light on the institutions that were taking advantage of the everyday man. Chaucer does this by making up tales about certain people that she light to the undercover world of the institutions. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses satire to attack the Church, the Patriarchy, and the Nobility.
Chaucer's Irony - The Canterbury Tales Chaucer's Irony Irony is a vitally important part of The Canterbury Tales, and Chaucer's ingenious use of this literary device does a lot to provide this book with the classic status it enjoys even today. Chaucer has mastered the techniques required to skilfully put his points across and subtle irony and satire is particularly effective in making a point. The Canterbury Tales are well-known as an attack on the Church and its rôle in fourteenth century society. With the ambiguity introduced by the naïve and ignorant "Chaucer the pilgrim", the writer is able to make ironic attacks on characters and what they represent from a whole new angle. The differences in opinion of Chaucer the pilgrim and Chaucer the writer are much more than nuances - the two personas are very often diametrically opposed so as to cause effectual irony.