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. A nun is someone whom is not vain, lives without sin, and puts others before herself. The prioress within Chaucer's tale, on the other hand, does not stay true to this statement. Despite being a nun, she wears a necklace of vanity other than keeping a rosary on her. She is on the bigger side compared to other women, which suggest she eats a lot and possesses the sin gluttony. The Prioress does not act like one and instead is quite vain compared to other nuns. The Prioress can be considered allegorical because she teaches that one …show more content…
In the medieval period, a monk is a person others should be able to admire for their hard work, ability to fast, and dedication to studying. Although a monk typically carries those traits, the monk in Chaucer's tale is more of a “modern man,” as he likes to call himself. Chaucer describes him as greedy, fat, and commonly rolls his eyes (A sign for someone who lusts after food and women), which is the complete opposite of what a monk normally is like. This character refuses to fast, as he claims to live like a modern man because the traditions monks live by are too old. A lesson that most can learn from the monk, is that claiming to be someone one is not for social status or money makes them seem greedy and narcissistic to
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.
The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, has gone through many adaptations. Some authors decided to translate the story into verse, while others chose to write the as a narrative in prose. Although all adaptations are based off the same story, they are vastly different and can be the result of opposing interpretations of the original work. After reading a text translated by Nevill Coghill (referred to as Version I) and a text translated into a narrative by a different author (referred to as Version II), it is obvious that for each similarity they share, there are many more differences in language, syntax, and imagery as well.
In the Prioress's Tale religious discrimination is a definite issue. It deals with the conflicts concerning Jewish, and Christian people. Although in today's times this religious conflict would not usually occur, it is still a minor issue. Most Christians do not despise Jewish people, and most Jewish people do not despise Christian people, in fact they seem to get along together pretty nicely. However in the Middle Ages people must have thought differently because this type of story would never be allowed in our library. However Chaucer has written the Tale in the way he felt that best expressed the times.
Chaucer aptly creates a picture that exposes how materialistic the clergy is. They all should be concerned with spiritual matters, yet they focus their attention on acquiring more mundane goods. The Monk makes no pretense of being poor and without luxuries. "I saw his sleeves were garnished at the hand with fine gray fur, the finest in the land, and on his hood, to fasten it at his chin he had a wrought-gold, cunningly fashioned pin. . ." (197-200, 110). Not only is this monk fat, and thus quite well fed, he has the money to afford details such as fur on his cloak. He is looking for attention by having such fine things. His station as a monk, however, requires him not only to work with the poor, but to be poor himself. Obviously, he is not following this requirement, much like the Prioress. Madam Eglantyne, appears at first glance to be proper for her station in life. However, a closer examination reveals "she wore a coral trinket on her arm, a set of beads, the gaudies tricked in green, whence hung a golden brooch of brightest sheen" (162-64, 109). A golden brooch serves no other purpose than being decorative. The Prioress has no...
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 examines many important qualities of human nature. Chaucer purposely mocks the faults in his characters, and shows the hypocrisy and deceitfulness ...
The Wife of Bath represents the "liberal" extreme in regards to female stereotypes of the Middle Ages. Unlike most women being anonymous during the Middle Ages, she has a mind of her own and voices herself. Furthermore, she thinks extremely highly of herself and enjoys showing off her Sunday clothes whenever the opportunity arises. She intimidates men and women alike due to the power she possesses. Because of her obnoxious attitude Chaucer makes her toothless, fat and large. Doubtlessly, she is very ugly, almost to the point of "not-presentable. This to me shows how Chaucer depicts what men don't want. The Prioress, on the other hand, serves as a foil to the Wife of Bath. Chaucer describes her as "tender-hearted" who cannot bear the sight of pain or physical suffering. She will cry at the thought of a dog dying. It could represent that she has a frail soul with low tolerance for pain and suffering. The latter description carries over into the modern stereotypes about women as skittish and afraid members of society who need to be cared for.
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.
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.
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."
It is not hard to apply Chaucer's description of the greedy doctor to today's medical system, nor is it difficult to find modern-day people with equivalent personalities to those of many of Chaucer's other characters. However, it is the institutions of his time as well as their flaws and hypocrisies that Chaucer is most critical of; he uses the personalities of his characters primarily to highlight those flaws. The two institutions that he is most critical of have lost much, if not all, of their influence; in many instances, the Church has only slight hold on the lives and attitudes of the people as a whole, and the strict feudal system has entirely disappeared. Few institutions today are as clearly visible and universally influential as those two forces were in the Middle Ages, so, if Chaucer were writing his tales today, he would most likely turn to the hypocritical attitudes of the general populace and the idiosyncracies of our daily lives. He gives some emphasis to these in the Tales (for example, he mentions the prioress's ladylike compassion for even the smallest creature in the Prologue, but has her tell an anti-Semitic tale later), but, in today's American culture, he would be most likely to criticize businessmen, middle-class parents, and the demand formust instantaneous gratification.
A prioress is the head of a group of nun’s. She is described as being very neat and polite. She sang beautifully and spoke french. The type of french she spoke was not the kind of french that was spoken in Paris. Chaucer also describes her as being clean and down to earth friendly. She is rich ,which goes against the church beliefs that it is a sin to be rich. The evidence that Chaucer is interested in The Prioress because he took the time to write a fair description of her compared to some of the others that Chaucer did not like as much. However, Chaucer observes that even though she is a well rounded individual, she does not follow the church 's orders of being poor. The people that he did not like included The Friar and The
The characters are on a pilgrimage which is a clear indicator that the text is of religious genre. The Catholic Church, at the time, was losing many followers due to the Black Death and their lack of faith in the importance of the church. The Summoner and the Pardoner, who both represent the Catholic Church, are both described as greedy, corrupt, and abusive. This is a direct correlation to how Chaucer and many others felt about the Catholic Church during this period. The Monk and the Prioress are not described as being corrupt like the Summoner and the Pardoner; however they are described as falling short of what is considered ideal for people of their position. They both are described as being in a depressed state. Also bot...
In the reading "The Canterbury Tales" by Geoffrey Chaucer, there is a detailed description about the nun Prioress in the "General Prologue". Chaucer uses physical and spiritual relationships to show the characteristics of a person. When we see the nun in relationship to other characters, for example the Knight, Chaucer makes the reader see two types of people. On one hand, the nun who gives much importance to minor things. On the other hand, the Knight who gives much importance to things that really matter. To describe how the nun was Chaucer writes with irony the description of the nun Prioress, everything that Chaucer says about her means the opposite.
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.