The Canterbury Tales are essentially a Chaucerian satire; the author sets out to deliberately upset the social order present at the time and proceeds to mock the faults innate in the characters. Chaucer gives a compressed view of characters such as the Knight and the Monk; in their descriptions, a preview of the kind of stories we can expect from these people is given. Take for example the Miller; his physical description alleviates him as a thick brute with a filthy mouth that was `moost of sin and harlotries', sufficed to say that his tale is one of adultery and sinful behaviour. However, Chaucer is not always as straightforward as this in presenting the pilgrims to us. His effective policy in unhinging the social hierarchy involves two fundamental characters: Chaucer the poet and Chaucer the pilgrim; the former needs no introduction whereas the latter is a device which the author uses to display an apparently indifferent account of the pilgrims. While he offers mostly positive feedback, the sarcasm of Chaucer himself is apparent, despite the mask he uses. So Chaucer's model characters in the General Prologue are not presented to us merely within this context, but rather they are shown to us more interestingly; in the progression of Chaucer's unravelling of their moral facades and noble status.
Chaucer is intentional in his positioning of the Knight; with the tales themselves, the Knight's tale is succeeded by the Miller's tale which interrupts and thus ridicules the designed order of the stories. He is presented as the glorious, valiant and truthful representation of what a knight should be. Described in terms of his commendable feats and his moderate dress and countenance, he is every inch the `worthy' man he is deemed...
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...d fro his loyal service. Though the account of the Parson is given by Chaucer the pilgrim, the sincerity of the poet is felt in establishing `the true moral standard by which the topsy-turvyness of all the rest may be measured'(Woolf, p.154).
What is presented to us in the General Prologue is a brief description of a series of characters, of these I choose the one true idealized character and the remainder were chosen due to their idealized perceptions as envisaged by society. The Knight, the Prioress, the Monk and the Frair were all expected to behave by certain standards. Through his double identity, Chaucer balances this perceived demeanour with a biting irony in order to dismantle their romantic disguises. With the Parson, Chaucer avoids sarcasm, or even a strong use of his alter ego; he remains truthful in managing societies perceptions of this figure
The Knight’s leadership is one quality that Chaucer values. The Knight is a wise, noble, modest, and brave man. Chaucer recognizes this when he writes, “To ride abroad had followed chivalry, / Truth, honor, generousness and courtesy. / He has done nobly in his sovereign’s war / And ridden into battle, no man more, / As well in Christian as in heathen places, / And ever honored for his noble graces” (ll. 45-50). Chaucer speaks highly of the Knight because he was well liked and the everyone looked up to him.
In his Canterbury Tales, Chaucer fully explicates the cultural standard known as curteisye through satire. In the fourteenth century curteisye embodied sophistication and an education in French international culture. The legends of chilvalric knights, conversing in the language of courtly love, matured during this later medieval period. Chaucer himself matured in the King's Court, and he reveled in his cultural status, but he also retained an anecdotal humor about curteisye. One must only peruse his Tales to discern these sentiments. In the General Prologue, he meticulously describes the Prioress, satirically examining her impeccable table manners. In the Miller's Tale Chaucer juxtaposes courtly love with animalistic lust, and in various other instances he mentions curteisye, or at least alludes to it, with characteristic Chaucerian irony. These numerous references provide the reader with a remarkably rich image of the culture and class structure of late fourteenth century England.
The structure Geoffrey Chaucer chose for his masterpiece, The Canterbury Tales, of utilizing a melange of narrative voices to tell separate tales allows him to explore and comment on subjects in a multitude of ways. Because of this structure of separate tales, the reader must regard as extremely significant when tales structurally overlap, for while the reader may find it difficult to render an accurate interpretation through one tale, comparing tales enables him to lessen the ambiguity of Chaucer’s meaning. The Clerk’s Tale and The Merchant’s Tale both take on the institution of marriage, but comment on it in entirely different manner, but both contain an indictment of patriarchal narcissism and conceit.
In this example, Chaucer, by writing this parody, is trying to express the idea that a lot of the ideals of chivalry are a ...
Chaucer uses the prologue to the Monk's Tale as one more opportunity for satiric, self-referential comedy. Within the story he is a necessarily opaque character. Significantly, the Host assumes that Chaucer is, at best, a mid-ranking government official and not an artist capable of constructing a landmark piece of literature such as the Canterbury Tales.
The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, is a collection of short stories told amongst pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. The pilgrims are competing against one another to see who can tell the best story on their trip. Along the way Chaucer makes quick comments and critics about the travelers. Some pilgrims he likes, for example the Parson. Others like the Pardoner, are disliked strongly by Chaucer. He also finds some pilgrims entertaining, like the Nun. She is described as a women who, instead of centering her life round Christ, tries to impress everyone. Although in his prologue Chaucer pokes fun at the Nun’s appearance and behavior, ultimately the readers can see that Chaucer
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.
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 stories on The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer often undermine societal hierarchies at the time. The tales Chaucer tells highlight aspects of authority that would otherwise never be questioned. In “The Miller’s Tale”, the notion of a clear useful economic hierarchy is challenged. Chaucer critiques chivalry in “The Knight’s Tale,” testing the value of the authority it provides. In “The Friar’s Tale”, Chaucer questions the benevolence of the church and its position hierarchy. By giving archetypal characters the freedom to act in opposition to their hierarchical roles, Chaucer calls the nature of authority into question.
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. 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 a 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.”
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.
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.
In General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales the character of Chaucer as the narrator serves as our guide to the action. Chaucer narrates as if he is in the moment himself, just meeting these pilgrims for the first time, and he makes the audience as though they are right there with him. At other times, though, Chaucer is a narrator who seems to know more than he ought to. For example, he tells us that, when the Shipman wins a fight, he murders the loser by throwing him overboard, or that the Reeve is stealing from his master. Are these really stories people would tell Chaucer when first meeting him? Chaucer also seems to know a suspiciously large amount about each pilgrim everyday lives. At these moments, Chaucer acts much more like an omniscient, or all-knowing, narrator, rather than one who's truly in the heat of the action. The reason for this choice could be that verisimilitude, or making things seem like real life, was not as important to a medieval author as it is to authors today. Instead, the narrator might choose to tell whatever he wants in order to better serve the purposes of characterization. The narrator makes it quite clear that he is also a character in his book. Chaucer creates an ‘alter ego’, a pilgrim called ‘Geoffrey’, who is the naïve narrator of the pilgrimage story, commenting on his fellow-pilgrims, and providing the links which join many of the Tales. This further extends Chaucer’s narrative possibilities, enabling him to open up another layer of opinion other than his own. In the General Prologue, the narrator presents himself as a gregarious and naïve character. Later on, the Host accuses him of being silent and sullen. Because the narrator writes down...
we see how Chaucer the pilgrim has been swayed and convinced by what the other pilgrims tell him. So much so that he reports qualities that are often the opposite of the true personalities of the characters he is describing. This ambiguity reveals a very clever sort of irony on behalf of the writer - while Chaucer the pilgrim is easily drawn in by their deliberate misrepresentations, it is up to the readers to see how wrong he is and draw their own, more accurate, conclusions. It shows many of the pilgrims to be very different people than those symbolised by the ideal qualities they want others to see.