Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales had a great impact on English literature. Chaucer wrote in a style that was undoubtedly nontraditional. Through his strong vocabulary and his utilization of different methods, he captures his audience’s attention. “The connections made by the individual writers between the self-serving confessions and the celebrity expose the didacticism of the exemplum and modern ghost stories. The vain delusion common to the fabliaux attest to both the malleability and the modernity of Chaucer 's material.” (Forni, 171-89). Through Chaucer’s nontraditional material in The Canterbury Tales, he brings his characters to life and he brings about the stereotypes of that time period.

In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer begins with a general prologue

In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer’s characters are not very stereotypical. As Chaucer introduces his characters, as well as their sins, he isn 't biased when doing so. He allows his readers to make a judgement themselves. Members of clergy were mainly the only characters to sin and break away from the traditional ideas of people of their time. For example, in the story Chaucer introduces the Monk. In history, monks are supposed to be very religious and studious. In Chaucer’s tale, however, he is many things a very religious person should not be. This monk is a hunter, overfed, and has many expensive habits. Chaucer describes him to have expensive clothing, ranging from high priced fur to gold jewelry. In the tale, he states “I saw his sleeves were made with fur at the hand, with fine grey fur, the finest in the land.” (Chaucer line 193-194). Stereotypically, the Monk in Chaucer’s tale is far from what normal monks were during that time period. Another pilgrim that breaks away from the stereotypes is the Pardoner. In The Canterbury Tales, the Pardoner is assigned to sell pardons from sin to the people. Instead of doing his rightful job, he sells stolen pardons to people and keeps the profits for himself. His greed and sin is not something that is very typical for a pardoner in that time period. The Nun is another pilgrim steering away from what is normal. Being a nun, she should be very religious. She is described as a strange woman with funny habits. Chaucer states “peyned hir to countrefete cheere of court,” (Chaucer 139-140) meaning that she does these funny things to seem courtly. Instead of being a religious figure and carrying around rosary beads, she carries vanity beads. She is very wealthy and doesn’t want to give up her luscious lifestyle, and that is not like nuns of that time. Chaucer uses characters that are not stereotypical to give a further