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Eternal Bliss or Life Amiss?: Analysis of Theme in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales The Christian Church has been a driving force in politics and morals for hundreds of years. In the medieval time period in Europe, the Church was particularly strong, a majority of the European peoples and rulers were followers. The set of moral codes and virtues the Church sets forth dictates how each person should live. Provided that one follows these morals, the Church guarantees every follower a place in Heaven, a paradise for a soul after its body’s death. Although the Christian Church offers salvation to each of its followers, nevertheless, certain people’s desire for immediate reward leads them to sin because the idea of an immediate reward outweighs that of a reward promised by the Church for the afterlife. In The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, the Pardoner, the Summoner, the Oxford Cleric, and the Friar seek immediate reward in cheating unsuspecting victims, in doing as little of what displeases them as possible, and in seeking extravagant possessions and pleasures. Characters in The Canterbury Tales see opportunities for riches, however immoral, and in pursuing them lose the Church’s promise of entrance into Heaven. The Pardoner and the Summoner in particular display a desire to cheat out anyone they can in order to further their own personal wealth. The Pardoner carries with him “…a pillow-case/Which he assert[s] …[is]…Our Lady’s veil” (Chaucer 712-713) and he is said to find “Some poor up-county parson to astound,” (720) charging them to see and touch this false relic. Though he seems a virtuous and trustworthy man, the Pardoner is just a fourteenth century con artist. His official job in the church is to sell ... ... middle of paper ... ...eds of years and remains as such. When inducted to service with the Church, each of the characters: the Pardoner, the Summoner, the Oxford Cleric, and the Friar, are given a place of paradise for their souls after death. As officials in such a highly respected institution, each is expected to maintain his responsibilities and behavior in a proper manner. After seeing the opportunity for personal gain, however, each of the men ignores his job and does exactly what pleases him most. The choice of an immediate pleasure over an eternal pleasure is too great, and thus, each does things that they can not seem to help themselves from doing. These include accepting bribes and cheating unsuspecting holy men, sinful and wicked crimes. It is therefore evident that because each of the characters mentioned prefers his way to the Church’s, he sins and gives up his place in Heaven.
...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 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, a greedy, corrupt religious official in The Canterbury Tales who swindles people out of their money, represents more than just a character; he represents an archetype that appears in several individuals, both in the past and the present. In the twelfth century, Geoffrey Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales, realized that the religious officials of his time were corrupt, wicked, and selfish, and hoped to satirize that with the Pardoner. In modern times, however, there is a more significant divide between church and state, and church officials do not hold the same amount of power today as they did in the past. Consequently, today’s career path that is most susceptible to corruption appears to be politics, not religion. No man
This tale includes what the storyteller considers sins; things such as drinking, gambling, and swearing, are all considered great sins. This tale focuses more on how to deal with greed and gambling and how those that are greedy are punished. “The Pardoner’s Tale” explains how three men were listening to a sermon and heard a funeral bell ring. They decided to speak with another man and asked who had passed. The man told the three men that it was a friend of theirs, who was brutally slain by Death.
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
Many of the Canterbury Tales had religious corruption, but the Pardoner’s Tale stood out, mainly because the main character was corrupt. A pardoner is a person who sells indulgences or pardons, which were in itself an act of corruption within the church due to greed. However, the pardoner “has no guilt whatsoever, [and] freely admits to his corruption without the slightest pretense of decency” (GraderSaver). Chaucer put every single ironic characteristic towards the Pardoner going from irony to avarice, but the pardoner still goes about and obviously sells his relics. This apparent corruption within a religious figure shows how the religious leaders weren’t worried about what was going to happen later on, but was just caught up in greed and personal wishes, much like what Scott tried to convey in the Kingdom of
Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron is a series of tales written during the Late Middle Ages that is meant to entertain the reader. While the entertainment value of Boccaccio’s work in undeniable, the Decameron also provides the reader with information about society at the time, and Boccaccio’s own worldview. One of the most prevalent themes throughout the Decameron is the portrayal of clergymen and members of religious communities as negative influences on those around them, constantly behaving in a manner unfit for those who are supposed to be moral and spiritual exemplars. Throughout the tales told by the lieta brigada, many priests, and friars are portrayed as being extremely lustful and greedy, frequently indulging in sex (often with the wives of other men), and living lives more befitting of a minor lord than a monk. Those clergymen who are not portrayed as out rightly immoral are usually stupid, and are unable to stop others from acting immorally because of their ignorance. Despite this, a few of the clergymen in the story are shown as ultimately having good intentions, or improving in morality through the actions of another. To understand all of these criticisms of the clergy, we must look at them through a historical lens, and observe the behavior of members of the Church in the Late Middle Ages. Finally, these analyses of the Decameron’s portrayal of clergymen may give us insight into Boccaccio’s own faith, and allow us to understand the motives of the author. In this essay, I will analyze the portrayal of clergymen and members of religious communities in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron. I will focus on the licentiousness, greed, and stupidity of these members of the Church, while also evaluating the few portrayals of good me...
The Catholic Church has long been a fixture in society. Throughout the ages, it has withstood wars and gone through many changes. It moved through a period of extreme popularity to a time when people regarded the Church with distrust and suspicion. The corrupt people within the church ruined the ideals Catholicism once stood for and the church lost much of its power. In the Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer primarily satirizes the corruptness of the clergy members to show how the Catholic Church was beginning its decline during the Middle Ages.
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.
“Whoever is greedy for unjust gain troubles his own household, but he who hates bribes will live” (Proverbs 15:27). The Bible condemns the value of greed and Chaucer is able to incorporate this value into his work through the ironic uses of holy men. Chaucer’s “The Shipman’s Tale” and “The Summoner’s Tale” suggests that the monk and the friar have an overactive id which overpowers their superego- evident from the character’s selfish motives and their rejection of their holy vows.
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,
Tales written in Canterbury Tales divulge the characteristics of 31 characters, each one particularly refined in their own unique way. Geoffrey Chaucer made it easy for the reader to divulge oneself in the characteristics of just one character. One of these characters includes the Pardoner. In many of the stories in Canterbury Tales, they often reflect the characteristics of the character telling them, as if each story is meticulously crafted to reflect upon the characters telling them. The Pardoners allegoric tale appears to be especially evident to this, as The Pardoners tale conveys many personal traits including greed, hypocrisy, and arrogance.
The Church is the first institution that Chaucer attacks using satire in The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer wants to attack the church’s hypocrisy. Chaucer decides to create the character of the pardoner to prove his point. Cawthorne conveys, “His Canterbury Tales collects together 24 narratives with a General Prologue and an epilogue or Retraction.” Chaucer describes the character before telling their tale. The Pardoner is a man who steals from the poor. Chaucer says on page 127 line 77, “For though I am a wholly vicious man don’t think I can’t tell moral tales.” The pardoner knows what he does is wrong, but he continues to do it anyway.
Throughout history, many historians have written religious works that consist of absolving sins, or vices. The Canterbury tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, is a prime literary example of these types of works. A pilgrim who admits that he is greedy has written the exemplary tale of the three rioutours and false, Chaucer modeled the pardoner’s tale on Faus Semblant a notorious character in Le Roman De La Rosa (Dean). Le Roman De La Rosa is an allegorical poem of chivalric love that Geoffrey Chaucer used as a base for many of his writings that were very religious, and church oriented. Books during the crusades used to advocate cultural values, and religious concepts. It is common for authors to base their stories off other author’s works, even in today’s era.
In The Canterbury Tales, author Geoffrey Chaucer writes of the journey several pilgrims make from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of St. Thomas Becket. Many of the pilgrims are discussed at great length, from their physical appearance to their personality traits. Many of these pilgrims represent a paradigm of their role in the 14th century when this set of tales was written. For example, the knight represents chivalry and honor to the highest degree, while the pardoner embodies Chaucer’s view on several negative aspects of the religious system at the time. These characters are the opposite extremes of Chaucer’s totem pole of morality, but most characters reside somewhere in the middle. Two of these characters are the Sergeant of Law