The Use Of Satire In Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

know all those words, but that sentence makes no sense to me” (Groeing). Matt Groeing, the famous creator of The Simpsons, perfectly describes what it’s like to read and try to interpret satire. Satire is when one says something, but really means something else. It can also be said that satire is very ironic as well. Notably, one of the greatest satirists is Geoffrey Chaucer, who was a poet in Medieval Europe. Chaucer wrote his greatest piece of work, Canterbury Tales using the tool of satire. Canterbury Tales is about a group of people Chaucer “goes with” on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. Each person is introduced and then on the journey they give a brief introduction of themselves and then they tell a tale. The collection of all the characters

The Pardoners Prologue and Tale is filled with such irony that the Pardoner is seen as pathetic. To begin, in his prologue, he says, “for my exclusive purpose is to win and not at all to castigate their sin” (The Pardoners Prologue). He then goes on to say that “I preach nothing but for greed and gain” (The Pardoners Prologue). After he tells the entourage what kind of man he is, he then says that just because he is vicious, it doesn’t mean he can’t tell moral tales. He then goes on to tell a story about the evil of greed, which always helps him succeed in “loosening the belts” of others to ultimately fulfill his own greed. After he tells the tale where three men kill each other over greed, he begins going into preacher mode, as if he has forgotten what he has already told the others about himself. “Chaucer shows how the Church is so corrupt that even a Pardoner who admits to his evil ways can still cheat the people out of their money” (Williams). By using satire, Chaucer is able to expose the church of its wrongdoings and put doubt into the yokel’s minds, every time they hear a pardoner or priest wrongly preaching for their

Chaucer introduces a woman whom he simply calls, the Wife of Bath, who tells of her five husbands. This woman is portrayed as very cunning, manipulative, and smart. She loves sex and she can’t wait for her sixth marriage even though she calls marriage a “woe.” She tells the entourage how she wishes to control her men and she tells them of the cunning and trickery ways in which she got her husbands to listen to her. She was an absolute expert. In her tale, the Wife of Bath tells about a knight who has to go on a quest to find what it is that all women want, or else he dies. He goes in search and comes upon an old lady who tells him that all women want to control their men and they never want their husband to be above them. The knight ends up keeping his head, but because of a promise he made, he must marry the old woman. He reluctantly does and on their wedding night, he insults her to which the old lady has some very wise words in response. “When the knight realizes that the words the old woman says are true regarding the lack of wealth and beauty, he turns to find the old woman turned into a beautiful young maiden” (The Wife of Bath says, “cut short the lives of those who won’t be government by their wives; and all old, angry niggards of their pence” (The Wife of Bath’s Tale). By using satire, Chaucer is warning