The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is a collection of frame stories written in the late fourteenth century. The Canterbury Tales represents a group of thirty pilgrims from all social classes and gender traveling to St Thomas a Becket’s shrine at Canterbury with a tale telling competition; the winner was to receive dinner as a reward. Each pilgrim is to share two tales on their way to Canterbury and two on the way back. They shared tales which was related to their life, consisted one of social class, economy, greed, or women role. Each of the tale depicts the culture and people of England’s medieval society.
Geoffrey Chaucer, who is considered the father of English literature narrates the tales precisely illustrates medieval social class and character roles throughout the prologue and the tales. In the medieval society, the social classes were divided in five: Ruling Class, Clergy, Middle Class, Trade Class, and
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Also, Chaucer depicts the medieval economy by describing the character’s attire and social class, such as The Merchant pilgrim. Chaucer describes The Merchant pilgrim as a worthy man, dressed very elegant, organized with wealth and successful in trade affairs and finance. This portray that the economy in medieval society was growing. Next, as the economy was flourishing, greed and obsession for money was increasing too. Money played a vital role in medieval society, because it was present everywhere in the society and almost all the pilgrims had obsession. Throughout the tales, The Pardoner and his Tale exemplifies the character of greed and corruption. By profession, Pardoner is a church preacher and a sin healer, who travels from one place to another. His character perfectly exemplifies greed and corruption because he sells fake relics promising cure for all kind of illnesses and sins to make