ipl-logo

Chaucer's Use Of Satire In Canterbury Tales Essay

1122 Words5 Pages

A discussion of Chaucer's Use Of Satire

Chaucer uses Canterbury Tales to express his thoughts about the way that the church and people acted. Chaucer attacks the Church because of the way that some of the religious leaders act.
There is also a patritracl attack that the Wife of Bath makes with the night and the old woman. The wife of Bath also makes an attack on the class nobility in society. This is Chaucer's use of satire in Canterbury tales is both Juvenile and Horatian when he talks about these key subjects. The use of satire in Canterbury tales is so that he can attack the church the patriarchal view and the class nobility without actually coming out and saying it. The first thing that Chaucer does is in the Prologue and Pardoner’s …show more content…

The church had the same patriarchal view that men control women and that men needed to control their women by beating them if they got out of had. In the Wife of Bath's Prologue the wife said that her first four husbands she could in a way control but with her fifth husband he would abuse her yet she was smarter and she would use what he wanted to get what she wanted. The wife of bath explained that one night he became so angry that he hit her and she fell to the ground and she saw that he had fear in his eyes that he had killed her and she used that to get what she wanted which was freedom. The wife explained that women want freedom and they will love a man that gives her that and that men can beat a women to scare her to be with him but she will never love him. In Diggikar article she states that the patriarchal society in india is so bad that it causes thousands of housewives to commit suicide in 2014 5,650 housewives killed themselves. In the wife of bath's tale the old woman says that the knight is very arrogant and when he says that she is poor she says that she being poor has taught her how to be respectful. David Thoreau said “ A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.” this relates to what the old woman is saying to the knight that he relies too much on his

Show More
Related
66 Words | 1 Pages

Chaucer wrote The Pardoner's Tale with the ideas of hypocrisy in mind. He attacks this subject with a thorough use of personification and irony in his story telling. Chaucer captivates these rhetorical techniques multiple times throughout the piece. He brilliantly personifies the ideas of greed and death, as a walking man. He also displays irony throughout the story with also the ideas of greed and death.

Read More
610 Words | 3 Pages

Around seventy percent of Americans claim to hate their job, but The Jungle by Upton Sinclair puts into perspective how fortunate they really are (Adeline). This novel goes into detail about what was actually happening in the meat packing plants of 1906 and how it affected the employees’ mental and physical health. The workers in the meat packing plants had it much worse than those seventy percent today. They described their job with many negative words such as “agony”. The use of the word “agony” in The Jungle proves that the so-called employees were actually just slaves.

Read More
139 Words | 1 Pages

Satire is a genre of literature employed by writers that adopts criticism to expose individuals, governments, or society by using wit and humor. Its main purpose is to make possible the enhancement of humanity and its institutions by employing constructive criticism. Voltaire was a well-known figure of the Enlightenment that often used such satirist in his works, and sought an improvement of humanity and its institutions through his philosophical views. Candide is one of Voltaire’s most known works, a classic, which is filled with indignation at the evil of humanity and its institutions. With this classic, Voltaire directs his criticism against philosophical optimism, foolishness, religion, nobility, and the inhumanities of man against man.

Read More
2469 Words | 10 Pages

In The Canterbury Tales, readers met so many religious figures who amount to a pure source of hypocrisy and contradiction such as the Friar, the Pardoner, the Nun, and more. Geoffrey Chaucer, the author, brought a delightful dose of sarcasm in various descriptions of the religious characters

Read More
1188 Words | 5 Pages

Geoffrey Chaucer, during the 1300s was a reformist, that being said, he used satire to change the views of the church he wished to reform. Chaucer had an agenda, this agenda was satire, directed to the yokels, the uneducated commoners. He targeted these people by writing in English. His writings were directed to these people because they would be those who were going to question the church. Natural instinct is to take what you know and share it, especially if the information is “juicy”.

Read More
651 Words | 3 Pages

In the Canterbury Tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer, satire is shown in many characters throughout the poem. The Friar, Monk, and Pardoner may seem like normal, and worthy people, but their true colors will show. Satire brings out the true characteristics of each character. The Frair, Monk, and Pardoner all have something in common. They are all suppose to be holy religious figures.

Read More
91 Words | 1 Pages

Chaucer also uses satire in a more comical way to illustrate how women can’t keep a secret. The Wife of Bath reveals this trait when she says “by heaven, we women can’t conceal a thing” (Chaucer 341), mocking the suggestion that women have an inability to keep a secret. Chaucer also makes fun of the knight’s condition using the irony of women being incapable of keeping a secret as the only thing that can save him. Mocking women and their incapability to not share private information only further reveals Chaucer’s satire.

Read More
1521 Words | 7 Pages

According to dictionary.com, satire refers to “the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.” (Dictionary.com) During the enlightenment period when Voltaire wrote Candide, communicating one’s displeasure with social and political issues was not acceptable and those who did were often looked down upon. By using satire, Voltaire is able to exaggerate his feelings while at the same time mocking social norms and those in power. Voltaire uses satire in Candide to communicate his opinions on several topics, which include, suicide, religion, sex, and the philosophy of optimism to name a few.

Read More
924 Words | 4 Pages

Geoffrey Chaucer’s satirical collection of stories called The Canterbury Tales, develops an insight of his criticism for the Catholic Church members during the medieval period. During the time period, the Catholic Church could be considered as the head of the society. The church held power over education, politics, economy, as well as the everyday lives of the citizens. Fear of excommunication kept the people from arguing with the ideas of the church. Some members of the church used this power to influence others to follow the rules of Catholicism; however there was a growing number of church members who were corrupt.

Read More
614 Words | 3 Pages

See Chaucer’s attitude to life through the << Canterbury Tales >> In the story of <>, tales has describe about thirty pilgrims that were going to worship Saint Thomas at Canterbury. As the narrator and also the writer of this tale, Chaucer has met/create out many kind fourteenth century British people. Like the Monk, Nun’s Priest, Pardoner, Somnour, Parson, and etc. In the way travel to Centerbury, everyone has taken turns to tell stories out of their knowledge for entertainments, these stories and description that are used is very representative of the value to the people at that times.

Read More
1060 Words | 5 Pages

In the fourteen century, men were always the superior, head of the household, the breadwinner, but women were always inferior, they would stay at home, do the house work, cook, and never would have a job. Well, times have changed. Women are reaching an equal status to men in political, social and economic matters It’s part of the idea called Feminism. In many ways the Wife of Bath displays many characteristic of women in the 21st century. Instead of being directed by men, she views herself as an independent person.

Read More
1052 Words | 5 Pages

The Wife of Bath: An Analysis of Her Life and Her Tale The Wife of Bath’s Prologue stays consistent with the facts that experience is better than the societal norms, specifically those instilled by the church leadership. Chaucer uses the Wife of Bath to display the insanity of the church, but through switching and amplifying their view of men and chastity onto the opposite gender. The church doctrine at the time held celibacy in an idolized manner, forgetting the inability for humans to ever reach perfection, or live up to this standard. They also did not hold women in a high regard at all, again this is where Chaucer flips the role, as the Wife of Bath describes her five marriages in her prologue, essentially describing each as a conquest, where the result is her having all control.

Read More
1025 Words | 5 Pages

He uses Satire in his writings to get his message across to the common people during the 1300’s. Satire is defined as the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people 's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues. The main story Chaucer uses satire to criticize the community in which he lives is in his stories the Canterbury Tales. “Despite its distracting tone, there are several important issues at the center of this debate. Questions of puns in Chaucer are not always undecidable, nor need their existence be dependent solely on critical ingenuity or moral delicacy”(Dane).

Read More
588 Words | 3 Pages

He uses the characters in his stories to help him achieve his goal while writing. Geoffrey Chaucer uses satire to reveal corruption, critique patriarchy, and appraise class and nobility. Chaucer 's use of satire aided him on revealing the corruption of the church. In his story, “The Canterbury Tales,” he shows that many members of the church use their positions for their own personal gain.

Read More
608 Words | 3 Pages

The Canterbury Tales is a series of stories told from the view of different characters. Chaucer uses irony to describe how characters from different social rankings are not defined by their positions and jobs but by their hearts. In the “Wife of Bath’s Tale” the Wife does not let the label of “wife” guide her actions. During this time, wives were inferior to their husbands and tended to stay home because they were dependent on others.

Read More

More about Chaucer's Use Of Satire In Canterbury Tales Essay

Related Topics

Open Document