Hypocrisy In Canterbury Tales Essay

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Deborah Whiteman
Ms. Davis
British Literature
21 January , 2014
The Canterbury Tales and Hypocrisy in the Clergy
In Geoffrey Chaucer’s, The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer introduces twenty nine pilgrims, who are on a horseback trip to Canterbury. These twenty nine pilgrims desire to receive a blessing on their pilgrimage from St. Thomas a Becket. The pilgrims start out at the Tabard Inn and decide to each tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two more on the way back to London. Chaucer views the Church as being hypocritical and displaying a lack of spirituality. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses the Nun in the “General Prologue”, the friar from the “General Prologue” and the Monk in the “General Prologue” to show the hypocrisy in the clergy.
The Nun is the best example of hypocrisy in these tales. In the “General Prologue,” the Nun states, “Her greatest oath was only ‘By St. Loy!’ / And she was known as Madame Eglantine” (“General Prologue” 124-125). Chaucer states that the Nun is a hypocrite, as she doesn’t not concern over helping others. She...

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