Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is a Masterpiece
analytical Essay
751 words
Geoffrey Chaucer's masterpiece "The Canterbury Tales" depicts characters from every stratum of feudal society and exposes the contradictions of the character's social roles. As a Church representative, the Pardoner, for instance, is to be a scammer of gullible believers. His tale is an ironic narrative that speaks about human morality. The Pardoner's tale is of three men finding fortune to have a better life and defeat death, but end up killing each other. Though the use of irony in "The Pardoner's Tale" satirizes both the corruption of the Catholic Church and individual human greed and materialism as evidenced by the characters in the tale and the Pardoner himself. The prologue or the introduction of the Pardoner's tale reveals his true character. The Pardoner uses his ties as a Church to manipulate people into giving him ill- gotten funds. He tells false tales and displays false artifacts just to fuel his "avarice." The Pardoner makes a lucrative living preaching "mockeries" in his "sermon, for it frees the pelf" and his purpose is to "win" and not to redeem people of "sin." The Pardoner himself is an embodiment of irony and contradiction by not only his practice of corruption but his tale being a moving parable that would strike shame within a person. The main characteristic of his personality and his tale is summed in his biblical statement in Latin, "Radix malorum est cupiditas," translated as "the love of money is the root of all evil." His irony derives from his wealthy-beggar status, corruption of the Church, and his tale denouncing all of his practices. The tales three main characters of three young men drinking at local tavern and stumble upon the rumors of a thief named Death that began killing ruthlessly around a local village. The three men then swear to "kill this traitor Death" and made an oath to "live and die for one another." Their oath begins the theme of irony as later, these men who wished to protect each other like brothers all lay dead, being murdered by one another over ill-gotten fortune. Their oath also calls to kill and murder death, death being an unstoppable inevitable way life cannot be defied, and it is humorist thought that they challenged a natural factor of life. Though they pledged to rid death from the people, when they meet an old man, they ask why he is even bothering to live.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how chaucer's masterpiece "the canterbury tales" depicts characters from every stratum of feudal society and exposes the contradictions of their social roles.
- Analyzes how the three men swear to kill a thief named death and make an oath to "live and die for one another."
- Analyzes how irony comes in many shades and positions and the contradiction continue to flip in this story. the reckless youth had found not death under the tree but the promise of a better, richer life.
- Analyzes how the pardoner makes money by hiding his secret desires of worldly goods and imposing the rhetorical statement of what possession is worth more than salvation.
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- The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chauceranalytical essayThe Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer Are there many ways that themes and symbols can be shown in stories? Geoffrey Chaucer uses many different themes, symbols and styles in writing all of tales in The Canterbury Tales. By using these things, Geoffrey utilizes several specific symbols to illustrate various central themes. The characters in the tales make the same mistakes that ordinary people would make, and they receive the same or even worse consequences. One message that is portrayed is greed can make people to evil actions.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how geoffrey chaucer uses themes, symbols, and styles in writing all of tales in the canterbury tales.
- Analyzes how the three friends plot against each other so one may receive more money than the others may.
- Illustrates how greed can deceive friends by depicting a friend plotting to kill them, but none of them thought the other friend would be planning to do so.
- Concludes that neither of the friends would have died if the money they found didn't turn their friendship into greed.
- Analyzes how the fox uses false flattery towards chanticleer and his singing abilities to seize him. he is less sacred and concentrates more on singing for sir russell fox.
- Analyzes how false flattery can be used to get chanticleer out of trouble. the knight rapes a young lady in "the wife of bath."
- Analyzes how the queen tells the knight that he has one year to find what women desire the most. the knight is in shock and doesn't believe what has just happened.
- Narrates how the knight's wife decides to marry her because she is unhappy and wants him to be what he wants. she chooses between young, beautiful, unfaithful, or old, ugly, and honest.
- Analyzes how geoffrey chaucer uses various themes, symbols, and styles in writing all of tales in the canterbury tales.
- Analyzes how greed can lead to evil actions in "the pardoner's tale," where the three friends end up killing each other because of their greed for the money.
- Analyzes how one friend goes to town to get supplies for the others, while the two other friends talk and plot actions to occur when he returns.
- Opines that one should be careful when using false flattery when meeting a new character.
- Narrates how chanticleer dreams that a fox grabs him and runs into the woods to eat him. the roaster sees sir russell fox trying to enter the garden.
- Analyzes how the fox uses false flattery towards chanticleer to get him out of danger.
- Analyzes how false flattery can be used in two ways, such as in sir russell fox outsmarting chanticleer into singing, and in "the wife of bath."
- Analyzes how the knight gets upset when the lady asks him to marry her because she's old, ugly, and poor. the lady decides to give him two choices of what he wishes her to be.
- Analyzes how geoffrey's personality values have changed since he has been with her for some time, but now she has given him the chance to become what ever she wants.
- Analyzes how geoffrey chaucer uses themes, symbols, and styles in writing all of tales in the canterbury tales.
- Analyzes how greed stabs friends in the back and deceives them into doing wrong in "the pardoner's tale."
- Illustrates how greed can deceive friends by telling them that they deserve their share of the money.
- Analyzes how the friends' plans backfire because neither of them thought the other friend would be planning to kill them.
- Analyzes how the fox uses false flattery towards chanticleer and his singing abilities to seize him.
- Analyzes how chanticleer uses false flattery to free himself from danger. he tells the fox to mock the others by calling them names to make them madder.
- Analyzes how the knight changes from bad to good in "the wife of bath." he rapes a young lady and is sentenced to die or life in jail, but the queen tells him he has one year to find what women desire most.
- Analyzes how the knight was forced to accept the fact that he needed to wed his old wife and went to bed. he disliked her because she was old, ugly, and poor.
- Analyzes how chaucer uses different types of writing in his stories to demonstrate themes and symbols, which a person may encounter in their lives.
4506 wordsRead More - The forms of literary evilanalytical essayChaucer, Geoffrey. "The Pardoner's Tale." Chaucer's Works. Ed. Walter W. Skeat. Vol. 4. London: U of Oxford, 2007. N. pag. Web. 24 Apr. 2014
In this essay, the author
- Explains that in literature, evil can take many different forms, including physical, inner, and a combination of the two.
- Analyzes how the anglo-saxon heroic story, beowulf, is influenced by physical evil, which takes the form of many things from the grim reaper to monsters.
- Analyzes the inner evil within the characters in chaucer's pardoner’s tale from the canterbury tales.
- Analyzes how macbeth's internal and physical evils are equally important and directly lead to death.
- Opines that no matter what type of evil these stories contain, it is still influential in the plot of the story.
- Opines that chaucer, geoffrey, "the pardoner's tale" is a work of walter w. skeat.
- Describes the shmoop editorial team's macbeth themes.
808 wordsRead More - Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Talesanalytical essayCanterbury Tales-A personal perspective on the Medieval Christian Church In researching Geoffrey Chaucer’s collection of stories named The Canterbury Tales, an interesting illustration of the Medieval Church becomes evident. A crooked society exists within the corrupt, medieval church community. Not all of the clergy’s intentions were corrupt, but as Chaucer, through his character the Pardoner,so well put it,“Radix malorum est cupiditas';, ( Love of money is the root of all evil). Many corrupted evils, such as greed, drove the clergy to deviate from the spirituality that religion was originated from.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how geoffrey chaucer's canterbury tales illustrates the corrupt, medieval church community. many corrupted evils, such as greed, drove the clergy to deviate from the spirituality that religion originated from.
- Analyzes how the pardoner is the biggest hypocrite in the book because he preaches to follow the path of god.
- Opines that the clergy of the medieval christian church were corrupt in their search for financial support other than from the church.
- Analyzes how chaucer described the friar as the finest beggar of his batch. he used every immoral and vicious method to extract money from the parishioners.
- Analyzes how chaucer states that the english clergy are dedicated to their work only when their greed is satisfied.
- Analyzes how chaucer divides the amount of corruption with good-faith and sincerity within the church at that time. he was a realist who wrote about corruption in the religious world.
686 wordsRead More - Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Talesanalytical essaySit and Spin: Chaucer’s social commentary grows from so-called "intrusion" The relationship Geoffrey Chaucer establishes between "outsiders" and "insiders" in The Canterbury Tales provides the primary fuel for the poetry’s social commentary. Both tales and moments within tales describing instances of intrusion work to create a sense of proper order disturbed in the imaginary, structured universes presented by the pilgrims. The perturbances, conflicts born of these examples of, "intrusion into the inner circle," bear the responsibility for most of the ironic-comedic role reversal on which the Tales thrive. From the knight’s rape of a maiden in the Wife of Bath’s fantastic tale to Absolon’s jamming of a hot iron into Nicholas’ rectum in the Miller’s tale, examples of such invasion and inversion represent the foundations of most of the tales’ plots. Chaucer exposes his fundamental device in the opening stanza of the General Prologue. The first five lines of the poetry address only major natural forces—"Aprill with his shoures soote," (1) and, "Zephirus…with his sweete breeth" (5). Life forms, first grain and then birds, grow organically from these bricks of the earth. The poet creates a chain of existence molded into a comfortable hirearchy that culminates in "smale foweles maken melodye" (9) after the mountain of nature from which they were born jabs them into action. Man drops onto this finely constructed reality from an unrelated angle. The poet explains that Men, like birds, find Spring’s call irresistable and, "Thanne longen…to goon on pilgrimages" (12). However, people do not arise from the same flow of the narrative.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how chaucer's social commentary grows from so-called 'intrusion' in the canterbury tales.
- Analyzes how chaucer's introduction misrepresents the physics of the earth to the rise of man and calls for an evolutionary analysis of existence.
- Analyzes how theseus touches off the whole narrative by stepping outside of his own boundaries. palamon and arcite find themselves forced far below the station that their 'blood roial' would naturally secure for them.
- Analyzes how chaucer indicates that he will enthrone the gods as soon as theseus stops the earthy war.
- Analyzes how the knight's tale functions as a figurative introduction to the whole of the canterbury tales. the general prologue provides no justification for chaucer’s sniping.
- Analyzes chaucer's method of creating situations in which class relationships are questioned or bent by forcing incongrous objects or people together.
1734 wordsRead More - Chaucer's Portrayal Of The Pardoner In The Canterbury Talesanalytical essayThe portrayal of the Pardoner in the Canterbury Tales gives Chaucer a chance to satirize religious men in their deceitful, lying ways. The Pardoner is a liar. He persuades people to purchase certificates of forgiveness by preaching his moral stories. Chaucer creates the Pardoner to be a very greedy and deceitful preacher when he writes, "'And thus I preach against the very vice/ I make my living out of--avarice,'" (Chaucer 24-25). The Pardoner is telling his crowd that he preaches certain stories to make a living rooted in greed. He is so obssesed with greed, and want for money, the Pardoner will blatantly lie every day of his life. Chaucer is satirizing religious men in the story to make fun of them, and try to improve their behavior in the
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes chaucer's portrayal of the pardoner in the canterbury tales to satirize religious men in their deceitful, lying ways.
131 wordsRead More - The Pardoner In The Canterbury Talesanalytical essayTales 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.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how chaucer made it easy for the reader to divulge oneself in the characteristics of just one character. the pardoner allegoric tale conveys many personal traits including greed, hypocrisy, and arrogance.
- Analyzes how the pardoner of greed began to be weaved into the story, beginning in the prologue and continuing through his story.
- Analyzes how the pardoner's character displays hypocrisy. he is a greedy person who insists that money is the root of all evil.
- Analyzes the character's arrogance in the first part of the prologue. the characters' plan of "brotherhood" began to deteriate as soon as the split up.
- Analyzes how the pardoners allegoric tale conveys many personal traits including greed, hypocrisy, and arrogance.
664 wordsRead More - Canterbury Tales Interpretive Essayanalytical essayOne of the people’s traits affected by human nature in many stories is greed. As shown throughout, greed is an evil sin. This is especially obvious in the Pardoner’s Tale, where the Pardoner, a church-appointed official who collects gold for absolving people their sins, tells about the evils of money. In the story, three friends, who wanted to make the world better by killing death, find gold, and unwilling to share, start planning to kill each other. Two friends sent the third to bring them food and wanted to kill him after he came back. The victim, however, also wanted the money, and poisoned their drinks. As a result, all three friends die. “Thus were these two homicides finished,/ and the false poisoner too.” (Chaucer 365). Even though Chaucer’s conclusions are not expressed and actually are very different from what the Pardoner says, Chaucer manages to convey h...
In this essay, the author
- Explains that chaucer's canterbury tales was one of the first works to approach the standards of modern literature. the morals, cleverly disguised, are present in almost every story.
- Analyzes how chaucer conveys his message to the audience in the pardoner's tale, where a church-appointed official collects gold for absolving people of sins.
- Analyzes chaucer's bizarre descriptions of lust and adultery in the canterbury tales.
- Explains that the traits depicted as the most affected by human nature in the canterbury tales are often most easily found in anybody, which contributed to the book’s immense popularity over the centuries.
628 wordsRead More - The Rich Diversity of Meanings of the Pardoner's Taleanalytical essayChaucer’s innovation in the Pardoner’s performance tests our concept of dramatic irony by suggesting information regarding the Pardoner’s sexuality, gender identity, and spirituality, major categories in the politics of identity, without confirming that information. Our presumed understanding of the Pardoner as a character lacks substantiation. As we learn about the Pardoner through the narrator’s eyes and ears, we look to fit the "noble ecclesiaste" (l. 708) into the figure shaped by our own prejudices and perceptions, as any active reader must do. But the Pardoner, ever aware of his audience, does not offer clear clues to his personality. This break between what the other characters say about the Pardoner and what the Pardoner says about himself has been a major source of tension for all readers of the Tales and especially critics who search for substantiation of their views beyond the Chaucer’s own language. The general tone of the Canterbury Tales is comic. After all, the pilgrims are traveling to the shrine St. Thomas Beckett in a public act of holy reverence, but the Tales take a darker turn when the Pardoner is brought to the foreground. The whole Canterbury Tales is a collected set of performances, stories told about telling stories. As Joseph Ganim has written, theatricality, by which he means "a governing sense of performance, an interplay among the author’s voice, his fictional characters, and his immediate audience," is "a paradigm for the Chaucerian poetic" (5). This paper shall endeavor to show that the major effect of the Pardoner’s presence in the Tales is to focus the reader’s attention to questions of performance and performativity, literary perception, ...
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how chaucer's innovation in the pardoner’s performance tests our concept of dramatic irony by suggesting information regarding his sexuality, gender identity, and spirituality.
- Analyzes how the general prologue offers a first impression of the pardoner, which has affected his interpreted characterization to this day.
- Analyzes the narrator's use of animal imagery in his portrait of the pardoner.
- Argues that critics have accepted their comments as indicative of the pardoner's sexual deviance, either physical or social. the phrase "beel amy" of line 318 is regularly regarded as a homophobic jibe.
- Argues that the text conveys some sense of sexual abnormality about the pardoner.
- Argues that effeminacy connotes rambunctious heterosexuality in men, an excessive interest in and desire for women in medieval times.
- Analyzes how chaucer's pardoner joins a list of fictional persons throughout western literature, whose vivacity and power lie in the tense relation of sexuality and morality that forms their characters.
- Analyzes carolyn dinshaw's interpretation of the pardoner’s fashion consciousness as a critical trope for his deceptive appearance.
- Analyzes how chaucer makes clear the nature of the pardoner's tale as a performance, not only as one of fifty-eight tales the pilgrims will tell on their journey to and from canterbury.
- Analyzes how critics like harold bloom locate chaucer's strength as a poet in his vivid creation of character who create themselves through language.
- Analyzes the dispute between linguistically-oriented interpretations of the characters as rhetorical effects of chaucer’s conscious manipulation of language and psychologically-oriened studies that treat the pilgrims as dramatic characters.
- Argues that the pardoner's prologue and tale are melodramatic lamentations that icing the simple, yet effective story of the three rioters.
- Analyzes how the pardoner's presentation lacks the substance necessary to achieve his desired results, so he turns to the delivery of the presentation itself.
- Analyzes how the pardoner concludes the tale with the much-cited claim "i wol yow nat deceyve" (918), a deliberately ambiguous statement that perfectly fits his character and performance.
- Analyzes how the pardoner's sermon and exemplum is manipulating the sermon tradition to cheat the "lewed" audience out of their money.
- Analyzes how the tale is a vehicle for the pardoner's self-revelation and the evasion of identity through performance.
- Analyzes how the pardoner makes his living by his ability to perform. he is a professional magician of words who suffers muted outrage when the truth of his conjuring is discovered.
- Analyzes how the pardoner concludes the tale with the much-cited claim "i wol yow nat deceyve" (918), a deliberately ambiguous statement that perfectly fits his character and performance.
- Analyzes how chaucer blesses the pardoner with a distinct performative style and technique. his abject, spectacular life offer the raw material for the emotional force of his tale.
- Analyzes how the pardoner is a practical rhetorician, mastering diverse ways of persuading an audience to act as he wishes.
- Analyzes how the pardoner adapts his presentation with each re-reading to the benefit of his audience.
- Analyzes how the pardoner, his prologue, and his tale are evocative emotionally, spiritually, morally and aesthetically. chaucer's fictive power is his powerful hold over our imaginations as readers.
- Explains benson, c. david, chaucer's drama of style: poetic variety and contrast in the canterbury tales.
- Introduces harold bloom to geoffrey chaucer's the general prologue to the canterbury tales.
- Describes bronson, bertrand h., "the pardoner's confession." twentieth century interpretations of the pargiver’s tale.
- Introduces dewey r. faulkner in twentieth century interpretations of the pardoner’s tale: a collection of critical essays.
- Explains that ginsberg, warren, and harold bloom have written geoffrey chaucer's the general prologue to the canterbury tales.
- Explains green, richard firth, and lisa j. kiser's "the pardoner’s pants (and why they matter)."
- Describes harrington, david v., "narrative speed in the pardoner's tale." twentieth century interpretations.
- Explains that huppé, bernard f. a reading of the canterbury tales. albany: state university of new york, 1967.
- Explains jordan, chaucer's poetics and the modern reader, berkeley: university of california press, 1987.
- Explains koff, leonard michael. chaucer and the art of storytelling. berkeley: university of california press, 1988.
- Describes lochrie, mccracken, and schultz, in constructing medieval sexuality.
- Explains mcalpine, monica e., and bloom's the general prologue to the canterbury tales.
- Describes geoffrey chaucer's the general prologue to the canterbury tales.
- Explains sedgewick, g. g, and wagnknecht's chaucer: modern essays in criticism.
5601 wordsRead More - Essay on Verbal and Situational Irony in The Pardoner’s Tale of Chaucer's Canterbury Talesanalytical essayIn “The Pardoner’s Tale,” Geoffrey Chaucer masterfully frames an informal homily. Through the use of verbal and situational irony, Chaucer is able to accentuate the moral characteristics of the Pardoner. The essence of the story is exemplified by the blatant discrepancy between the character of the storyteller and the message of his story. By analyzing this contrast, the reader can place himself in the mind of the Pardoner in order to account for his psychology.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes chaucer's use of verbal and situational irony to accentuate the moral characteristics of the pardoner.
- Analyzes how the pardoner's sermons revolve around the biblical idea that the love of money is the root of all evil.
- Analyzes how chaucer clouds the genuine nature of the pardoner's psychology in ambiguity.
- Analyzes how the pardoner's psychology is directed by immoral habits. he envelops his sermon on avarice around a subliminal message urging his audience to purchase his indulgences.
- Analyzes how the pardoner's psychology is defined by his unyielding love of money. his impurity isn't a result of his sins, but his reluctance to change his ways.
- Analyzes how the pardoner's mind is replete with subtle, contradictory nuances. he is highly effective in what he does.
752 wordsRead More - An Analysis Of Pardoner's Prologue And Taleanalytical essayChaucer 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...
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how chaucer explores the idea of hypocrisy in his "pardoner's prologue and tale" and the introduction to the tale.
- Analyzes how chaucer uses the pardoner as a representation of the roman catholic church in his "canterbury tales."
- Analyzes how the pardoner's appearance and attitude introduce the idea that he and his overall character are full of ironic discrepancies.
- Analyzes how chaucer points out that pardoner is not a strange case, or someone who is fraud at his job, as he has all the appropriate paperwork and is clearly supported by the church.
- Analyzes how chaucer criticizes the church through the irony between what the pardoner says is right and how he actually acts and speaks.
- Analyzes chaucer's belief that the pardoner represents the church as a whole by being one of their spokesmen.
- Analyzes chaucer's portrayal of the pardoner as a self-absorbed, greedy man that mirrors what thinks about the church.
1340 wordsRead More