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how chaucer reflect the society in canterbury tales
corruption of the church
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The Canterbury Tales - Corruption in the Church Chaucer lived in a time dictated by religion and religious ideas in which he uses The Canterbury Tales to show some of his views. Religion played a significant role in fourteenth-century England and also in Chaucer’s writing. His ideas of the Church are first seen in “The Prologue,” and he uses seven religious persons to show the influence of the religion in his writing. Although many of his characters appear to portray part of the corruption in the Church, he does give a small example in which one can conclude that he is speaking in praise. The Friar, who lived off begging, appears to live a lowly existence, while Chaucer refers to the papacy in writing, “he had a special license from the Pope” (Chaucer 9.) Chaucer utilizes his opening statements of the Friar to present his character drawbacks, which can provide for a greater representation of the Church. In his description, it is shown that he will help the society “for a small fee” (Chaucer 10.) The Friar, being a religious person, uses his power to benefit for his own greed. ...
Chaucer first begins his sly jab at the Church’s motives through the description of the Pardoner’s physical appearance and attitude in his “Canterbury Tales.” Chaucer uses the Pardoner as a representation of the Church as a whole, and by describing the Pardoner and his defects, is able to show what he thinks of the Roman Catholic Church. All people present in the “Canterbury Tales” must tell a tale as a part of story-telling contest, and the pilgrim Chaucer, the character in the story Chaucer uses to portray himself, writes down the tales as they are told, as well as the story teller. The description of the Pardoner hints at the relationship and similarity between the Pardoner and the Church as a whole, as well as marks the beginning of the irony to be observed throughout the “Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale.” The narrator describes the Pardoner as an extremely over confident, arrogant, and unattractive man, noting that his hair is “as yellow as wex,” lying thin and fl...
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.
Ireland’s purpose is to show how Chaucer had a good example to show his final order to his audience. He establishes a reflecting tone for explaining the Wife of Bath’s sovereignty. This work is significant because of the comparison between The Wife of Bath’s Tale and Prologue. (Ireland 10)
Many of the religious characters in The Canterbury Tales represent character traits that are different from what is traditionally expected of them. This is because the Catholic Church, which ruled all of England, Ireland and most of Europe in the Fourteenth Century, was extremely wealthy. Extravagant cathedrals were built in every big city while the people suffered from poverty, disease and famine. The contrast between the wealth of the church and misery of the people was overwhelming. As a result, the characters in Chaucer's tales were portrayed as deceitful and greedy. Two examples of this are the Summoner from the "The Friar's Tale" and Death from the "The Pardoner's Tale."
During Chaucer’s time, there was only one church, the Roman Catholic Church. There is only one church because the Protestant movement hasn’t started yet, it started in the 16th century. Anyone who was a member of the Roman Catholic Church, for example a Pardoner, a Summoner, or a Friar, are not to have sex, or party around, as well as not having money. Chaucer notices that some of these people in the Church break these rules repeatedly. Chaucer uses satire to brilliantly describe the hypocrisy in the church. Although Chaucer may come off as anti-religious, he is religious, he is against anti-hypocrisy. The first character Chaucer uses satire on is the Friar. Chaucer tells his audience that the Friar liked to sleep around a lot with women. The Friar also got lots of girls pregnant and then married them off to men in the church. The Friar was also very wealthy, and liked to party. Which are clear violations of the church’s code. To make things worse, Chaucer said that this particular Friar was better than others. The next characters that Chaucer introduced were the Pardoner and the Summoner. The Summoner’s job in a church is to find people who have committed sin and bring them to the church so that their sins can be forgiven by the Pardoner. However, the Summoner abused his power by blackmailing people to go see the Pardoner or else they
The friar is the exact opposite. He was the best friar around because no one knew as much dalliance and sweet talk as he did. He knew all the taverns, innkeepers and barmaids more than the lepers and beggars. He believed that being seen with paupers was not good for a man in his position and there was no profit to be made with them, unlike with the rich and the sellers of food which is profitable. He was also the best beggar in the area and no one else moved into his turf. In his tale he was a man that said he would pretend that he was holy. He also gives the best pardons to the people that give him the maximum amount of money. In the poem, Chaucer makes a statement that says he is the only person that practices his profession accurately.
Many pilgrims in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales held a religious position. Some of these people’s personal ideas have caused debates and criticism over Chaucer’s opinion of the Catholic Church. Critics have discussed the ideas that were presented both subtly and openly. Two of the pilgrims and their tales will be discussed: the Prioress and the Pardoner. Both of these tales offer points of criticism in the Catholic Church.
...id too better than lepers, beggars and that crew" (244-46, 111). The Friar cares only about pleasing himself and does not work to make other people's lives better. He neglects the people he is supposed to help and instead spends his time with the rich. These members of the clergy are not devout Catholics and have no right to be masquerading as one. By pretending to be something they are not, they bring corruption into the church.
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.
The Canterbury Tales examines many important qualities of human nature. Chaucer purposely mocks the faults in his characters, and shows the hypocrisy and deceitfulness ...
The Canterbury Tales is a very popular and well known set of stories, written by Geoffrey Chaucer. This collection of stories is great entertainment and some even provide very good moral lessons; most of these stories show the contempt Chaucer had for the Church of England which had control at the time over most of England. Chaucer’s bias towards the corruption of the Church is best demonstrated in the Pardoner’s Prologue, in contradiction with the Parson’s Tale, and the level of power within the Church structure. These are two of the stories of the many that are in The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer uses the Pardoner as a high level leader who is corrupt and yet enables him to convert the sinners even if he does it for personal gain. While the Parson is of lower standing in the Church, he is not corrupt, and gives the message to the pilgrims so that they might be forgiven.
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.
Chaucer uses the Prioress, the Monk and the Friar to represent his views on the Church. He makes the three model members of the Church appear to have no problems with self-indulgence, greed, and being unfaithful to their vows. He displays his anti skeptical thoughts of the faults of the medieval church by making fun of its teachings and the people of the church, who use it for personal gain. Chaucer see’s the church as corrupt, hypocritical and greedy.
Throughout this paper, we will look into the disappointing church corruption of the middle ages, more specifically, the unbiblical practices, serious problems, hypocritical popes, and finally, the people trying to fight the corruption!
Chaucer’s "General Prologue" is remarkable in that it allows us to see not only what characters may claim to represent, but also how they really are inside. Chaucer’s depiction of the Friar, who should be a man of upstanding piety and virtue, makes it readily apparent that he is quite the opposite. The Friar’s elitist background and behavior, his begging-supported greed, and the vices that oppose true Christianity prove that he is a man of low moral standards. Certainly, Chaucer paints a masterful contrast of image vs. reality.