Moral Dilemma Of Revenge And Revenge In Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

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Among other moral lessons conveyed by Shakespeare through Hamlet, is the moral dilemma of revenge and punishment. Hamlet has been told by his father’s ghost that Claudius was his murderer and as a son it was Hamlet’s duty to avenge Senior Hamlet. However, Hamlet is seen to be in a constant conflict between his mind and heart, between what is morally the right thing to do and what is not. His confusion is evident in one of his soliloquies, where he is seen to engage in self-rebuke for delaying his revenge and is considering that the ghost might be just an illusion. In Hamlet’s own words “I know my course. The spirit that I have seen [m]ay be the devil; and the devil hath power [t]o assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps [o]ut of my weakness
In these tales, Chaucer describes the world from the perspective of people coming from all walks of life. On one hand there is the Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale with a theme derived from a biblical saying that goes “Radix malorum est Cupiditas” meaning “Greed is the root of [all] evil,” while on the other there is the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale which illustrates the picture of a woman in conflict with the moral code of conduct society expects her to follow (Chaucer 711). Wife of Bath Prologue and Tale focuses on the morality associated with the subject of marriage and women’s dominance over men in relationships. The protagonist, Wife of Bath challenges the teachings of Bible and justifies her five marriages by saying “Lo, here is the wise king, Don Solomon; I think he had some wives, well more than one. Now would to God it lawful were for me [t]o be refreshed here half so much as he” (681). These words reflect the bold and independent thoughts of a modern day women who has her own perspective of morality and believes that “God bade us to wax and multiply” (682). She does not care what the society thinks about her, but believes
According to the pardoner all evil deeds stem out of sins like gluttony, avarice, gambling, lechery and false promises. The pardoner adopts an ironic approach in delivering his moral lesson where he uses his own hypocrisy as an example and says that says “Thus the very same vice that I practice, I preach against… Yet still I can make other folks begin to leave avarice and solely repent” (713). This hypocrisy can be seen in today’s world to as one of the morally wrong deeds that lead to conflicts and must be avoided. The entire moral lesson of the Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale is summed up by the Pardoner in the end where he

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