Characterization has been the cornerstone of literature for centuries. Character presentation can attain any work fame or shame. Geoffrey Chaucer, a pioneer of English Literature’s works carried mass appeal. His best known works appealed to those of all walks of life. Chaucer’s work resulted in mass appeal because it used many forms of characterization to present the characters to the reader. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses thoughts and actions, his word, and satire to characterize The Squire and The Wife of Bath.
Geoffrey Chaucer is well known for his use of characterization in his works. A notable work of Chaucer was Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. This piece was notable because it appealed to a diverse base of readers. It appealed to a wide range of readers because of Chaucer’s characterization. Characterization is the process an author uses to develop the characters of a story.
Characters can be developed in many ways. Thus there are many forms of characterization for an author to choose from. Chaucer used many forms of characterization in his work, Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. Examples of forms of characterization used included the character’s thoughts and actions, author’s word, and satire. Character’s thoughts and actions can be described as how the character thinks as well as acts. Author’s word can be described as how the author directly describes the character within the text. Satire can be commonly described as writing to expose the shortcomings of individuals as well as society as a whole to mockery.
These three forms of characterization were used to develop many characters within Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. Examples of these three forms of character development ca...
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...ewer’s manner of describing how The Wife of Bath was a parody. The Wife of Bath was a parody because it mocked how women were ruled by men in society. This displayed parody because it showed a rare case of a woman successfully ruling men.
As Geoffrey Chaucer pioneered English Literature he used many forms of characterization in his works. He notably used characterization in Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. Chaucer used many forms of characterization to provide a great understanding of the characters in each of his works. In his work Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, characters were developed using their own thoughts and actions, Chaucer’s own words, as well as satire. Chaucer’s ability to build a character right before the reader’s eyes acclaimed his works a great deal of fame. His works amassed great fame because they appealed to a diverse base of readers.
Personalities come in all shapes and sizes, however, they often contrast with ones occupation or societal ranking. Geoffrey Chaucer shows readers this through The Canterbury Tales as he describes the lives and his views of each character. The Prioress, the Monk, and the Friar, all get on the narrators bad side as they try to portray themselves as someone they were not destined to be. An important aspect of medieval societal values is being true to ones ranking among others and these characters are the complete opposite of whom they truly are. Through these characters, Chaucer shows how these flaws can damage the way others perceive someone.
Characterization is the process by which the author reveal the personality of a character. Characterization can be created in two different ways: direct and indirect characterization. Direct characterization is when the author tells the readers what a character is like. Indirect characterization is based on clues from the story, the reader decides what a character is like. Indirect characterization can come from what the character says/does, what the character thinks, what others say about the character, and the character’s physical appearance.
In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Chaucer the author and Chaucer the pilgrim are both quick to make distinctions between characters and point out shortcomings. Though Chaucer the pilgrim is meeting the group for the first time, his characterizations go beyond simple physical descriptions. Using just twenty-one lines in the General Prologue, the author presents the character of the Miller and offers descriptions that foreshadow the sardonic tone of his tale and the mischievous nature of his protagonist.
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are filled with many entertaining tales from a variety of characters of different social classes and background. The first two tales told, by the knight and the miller, articulate very different perspectives of medieval life. Primarily, The tales of both the knight and the miller bring strikingly different views on the idea of female agency, and as we will discover, Chaucer himself leaves hints that he supports the more involved, independent Alison, over the paper-thin character of Emily.
In The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, the stereotypes and roles in society are reexamined and made new through the characters in the book. Chaucer discusses different stereotypes and separates his characters from the social norm by giving them highly ironic and/or unusual characteristics. Specifically, in the stories of The Wife of Bath and The Miller’s Tale, Chaucer examines stereotypes of women and men and attempts to define their basic wants and needs.
Authors develop characters’ personalities in order to add depth to their story and allow readers to feel more connected to the characters. Beyond this, characterization also allows authors to develop the themes of their stories in a more clear manner. A prime example of this would be in the poem Judith, where the author contrasts Judith and Holofernes’ personalities in order to develop the major themes of heroism and having faith in God.
Chaucer used controversies to create character. He wanted his characters to teach the readers something new about life. The Wife of Bath and the Pardoner demonstrate Chaucer’s way of creating characters based on the sexuality of the medieval period.
Chaucer’s book The Canterbury Tales presents a frame story written at the end of the 14th century. It narrates the story of a group of pilgrims who participate in a story-telling contest that they made up to entertain each other while they travel to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. Because of this, some of the tales become particularly attractive for they are written within a frame of parody which, as a style that mocks genre, is usually achieved by the deliberate exaggeration of some aspects of it for comic effect. Chaucer uses parody to highlight some aspects of the medieval society that presented in an exaggerated manner, not only do they amuse the readers, but also makes them reflect on them. He uses the individual parody of each tale to create a satirical book in which the behaviours of its characters paint an ironic and critical portrait of the English society at that time. Thus, the tales turn satirical, ironic, earthy, bawdy, and comical. When analysing the Knight’s and the Miller’s tale, one can realise how Chaucer mocks the courtly love convention, and other social codes of behaviour typical of the medieval times.
One of the most recognized attribute of Chaucer’s narrative was the ability to create characters that embodied features distant from the fiction, making them very real and believable through the writing. To verify this statement it is necessary to examine Chaucer’s work. The most celebrated of them is the collection of stories "The Canterbury Tales" (originally written in Middle English) which were the last work of Geoffrey Chaucer and perhaps the best of the middle ages in England. Therefore, for literary reasons, three characters were taken for an analysis to distinguish the level of transcendence recognized (if any) in their inner and outer lives.
Throughout literature, relationships can often be found between the author of a story and the story that he writes. In Geoffrey Chaucer's frame story, Canterbury Tales, many of the characters make this idea evident with the tales that they tell. A distinct relationship can be made between the character of the Pardoner and the tale that he tells.
Raymond Carver, the author of “Cathedral” uses characterization to describe the main character, the narrator’s development in the story upon meeting a blind man. This blind man, Robert, unintentionally changes the narrator’s perspective on life and on himself. The narrator first starts off as an arrogant, close minded individual who later opens his mind and is introduced to new perspectives of life. The most important element used in this writing is characterization because it makes the reader change perspectives on how the narrator develops throughout the story and deeply goes into a lot of detail to support the narrator’s development. good thesis, but the wording is a little bland and lifeless
What makes Chaucer’s characters so unique and unforgettable is that he cast them outside of these roles. Bordering on the controversial but lightened by his use of humor, his characters...
Characterization in a novel is an incredibly important tool for the author, as it sets up what the character will be like for the rest of the novel. Thus, characterization can never
“The Canterbury Tales” was written in the 14th century by Geoffrey Chaucer. These tales constitutes a frame story which each pilgrim has to tell their own story to the Chaucer, the pilgrim; not the poet. As we know, the tale itself is a satire, but the stylistic structure in the tales creates a sense that can be a parody as well. To support this idea of parody, it is need to know the definition of parody and how Chaucer use this style to make his own ideas clear through the general prologue and the tales such as “The Miller’s Tale” and “The Knight’s Tale”.
An interesting aspect of the famous literary work, "The Canterbury Tales," is the contrast of realistic and exaggerated qualities that Chaucer entitles to each of his characters. When viewed more closely, one can determine whether each of the characters is convincing or questionable based on their personalities. This essay will analyze the characteristics and personalities of the Knight, Squire, Monk, Plowman, Miller, and Parson of Chaucer's tale.