Canterbury Tales
Throughout “The Canterbury Tales” by Geoffrey Chaucer, all the tales have a variety of clever humor, witty repartee, and comic relief. In the book a group of Pilgram’s travel to Canterbury Cathederal and they tell a collection of different stories on there way their and back. Each tale is unique and intresting in it’s own way. Some met the Host request of being entertaing and moral, and some tale’s didn’t but “The Canterbury Tales” is still a significant book. In the book Chaucer talks about different streotypes and gives his of the Pilgrams different ironic or unusal characteristics. Each one of Chaucer’s tales were entertaining and moral but “The Pardoner’s tale” is a skillful blend of both, which The Host requested.
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“ I preche no thyng but for coveitise;”(105) The Pardoner comes off as righteous by telling biblical stories and preaching all the time while stealing and lieing from people. The pardoner even admits to stealing from poor town’s with starving children. He states that greediness is evil but act’s greedy by stealing pardons from people claiming they’ll take them to Heaven then keeping the money for himself instead of giving it to the church. The pardoner is a fraud motivated by greed while he claims to be a man of …show more content…
John made a mockery of himself by being foolish and marying a much younger girl, this is increased by the irony of his jealousy and protectivness that is the very reason why she cheats. “ The ‘Rule of Justice’ makes us feel that the clerk and good carpender have violated norms, which allow us to view their affliction as becoming them, more explicit.” Therefore, John is over protective of his younger wife because he doesn’t want her to cheat on him, but the only reason why she does cheat on him is because of how over protective he
In the Prologue of the tale, the Pardoner clearly admits that he preaches for nothing but for the greed of gain. His sermons revolve around the biblical idea that “the love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Timothy 6:10). Ironically, however, the Pardoner condemns the very same vice that he lives by, as he proclaims “avarice is the theme that I employ in all my sermons, to make the people free in giving pennies—especially to me”. Thus, covetousness is both the substance of his sermons as well as the mechanism upon which he thrives. He clearly states that repentance is not the central aim of his preaching, by mentioning “my mind is fixed on what I stand to win and not upon correcting sin”. Rather, his foremost intention is to acquire as many shillings as he can in exchange for his meaningless pardons. In this regard, one can argue that although the Pardoner is evil, he is not a dissembler. His psychology is clearly not guided by hypocrisy because he does not conceal his intentions under false pretences.
A pardoner is a person that could relieve someone from their sins. In the case of the Pardoners Tale, the Pardoner expects money for relieving sinners from their sins and for telling a story. The pardoner in this tale is hypocritical, his scare tactics prove this. He says that greed over things like money is an evil thing, and his audience should give him large amounts of money so he can pardon them from their sins.
The Pardoner is the best representation of an allegorical character in “The Prologue” of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. The Pardoner is the perfect personification of fraudulence. He shows this in three basic ways: his appearance, speech, and actions. If one just glances through the reading of the Pardoner than one will think that he is a good religious man, but if one look further into it than he will find the small double meanings that he is the exact opposite. Chaucer likes to use an allegorical style to add some comedy and sophistication to his writings.
The Pardoner does the opposite of that. When the Pardoner sells a pardon instead of giving the money to the church or donating it he keeps it for himself. This is totally against integrity and shows again why the Pardoner is not honest. Cheating is another word that is important with the word honesty because it is the opposite of it. To cheat someone is to wrong them with or without their knowledge. The Pardoner does this buy selling his so called “relics” when really they are just fake and he is just trying to get more money. As Chaucer (1476) himself said in the Pardoner’s prologue “he made the parson and the people his apes” (line 705). The Pardoner is a cheater and a scammer these are qualities that an honest person has, an example of an honest person is Abraham Lincoln, he was also sometimes referred to as “Honest Abe” or supposed honest
The difference between the tale of the Three Brothers and the Pardoners Tale is that in the Pardoners Tale the pardoner told a story of three rioters while the Tale of the three brothers was about three brothers. Unlike the tale of the three brothers, the rioters went searching for death because they wanted revenge. When they found the old man, he said he knew where death was after the three men threatened him and said he was in an old grove and pointed in the direction. When they came upon death they forgot it was death they were searching for because they found 8 barrels full of gold. They wanted everything for themselves and they were willing to kill the other rioters to get it. So they sent the youngest one to go get supplies in the town
The pardoner was a proud man. While others were not as educated as he was, the pardoner spoke in Latin to show off his linguistic ability. His failure to practice what he preached made him a model of hypocrisy and deceit. The pardoner was such a bragger that he boasted of the sins that he had done. "I spit out my venom under the color of holiness, to seem holy and true"(page 343). The pardoner admitted to his astonishing behavior and confessed to his immorality. His shameless confession indicated that he was guilty of foolishness: I preach, as you have just heard, and tell a hundred other falsehoods...my intention is to win money, not at all to cast out sins (page 343).
“The Canterbury Tales” was written in the 14th century by Geoffrey Chaucer. These tales constitutes a frame story which each pilgrim has to tell their own story to the Chaucer, the pilgrim; not the poet. As we know, the tale itself is a satire, but the stylistic structure in the tales creates a sense that can be a parody as well. To support this idea of parody, it is need to know the definition of parody and how Chaucer use this style to make his own ideas clear through the general prologue and the tales such as “The Miller’s Tale” and “The Knight’s Tale”.
In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Chaucer the author and Chaucer the pilgrim are both quick to make distinctions between characters and point out shortcomings. Though Chaucer the pilgrim is meeting the group for the first time, his characterizations go beyond simple physical descriptions. Using just twenty-one lines in the General Prologue, the author presents the character of the Miller and offers descriptions that foreshadow the sardonic tone of his tale and the mischievous nature of his protagonist.
Throughout literature, relationships can often be found between the author of a story and the story that he writes. In Geoffrey Chaucer's frame story, Canterbury Tales, many of the characters make this idea evident with the tales that they tell. A distinct relationship can be made between the character of the Pardoner and the tale that he tells.
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.
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.”
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.
The Canterbury Tales is a great contemplation of stories, that display humorous and ironic examples of medieval life, which imitate moral and ethical problems in history and even those presented today. Chaucer owed a great deal to the authors who produced these works before his time. Chaucer tweaked their materials, gave them new meanings and revealed unscathed truths, thus providing fresh ideas to his readers. Chaucer's main goal for these tales was to create settings in which people can relate, to portray lessons and the irony of human existence.
If one has ever read the General Prologue of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, they will find the attitude of Chaucer to be very opinionated and complex toward the members of the clergy. Some of the clergy consists of the Monk, the Prioress (also known as the nun), and the Friar. Chaucer has gone into depth of each one of these members in each section of the Prologue. From reading each section and analyzes his attitude towards each member, it is portrayed that Chaucer has a complex attitude of appreciation and dishonesty towards the members of the clergy.
The prologues that link the various Canterbury Tales shift effortlessly from ponderous drama to light comedy. The lamentable tale of Griselde gives way to the Host's complaint about his shrewish wife. This prologue further illustrates how each of the characters informs the tale he tells. The travelers largely tell tales that conform to their personal experiences or attitudes, such as the Merchant, whose awful marriage is the occasion for his tale about a difficult wife. In most cases the influence of the narrator on his tale is apparent, but the authorial touch lightly felt. The Merchant's Tale, for example, gains little from the prologue's information that the Merchant is disenchanted with his own marriage. Only a few of these tales exist largely as extensions of the characters who tell them; the Wife of Bath's Tale is the most prominent of these stories.