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Introduction to the canterbury tales
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Introduction to the canterbury tales
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The castles, the kings and queens, and the gallant knights most of us would like to live in that time of knights and princesses, but there are many downsides. The Black Plague, the widespread poverty, and the fact that the majority of the population was uneducated were all major flaws in this time. Would you really want to live in Medieval Europe? Doctors tried unsuccessfully to get rid of the illnesses around them. They had no books to read or books from other doctors they only used trial and error with their patients.
In the Middle Ages, which started at A.D 476 and ended in 1500, a lot of serfs and peasants faced adversities. Serfs were slaves who worked for the lords and ladies in the Middle Ages. On the other hand, peasants are lower class people who works in farmlands. Serfs and peasants were in the lowest class, so they had a life that was harsher than than the lords and ladies.
During the Middle Ages, life was simple and based around the feudal system. Christianity was the most widely practiced religion and the Church was deeply integrated into society. The lords owned the land and peasants worked for them on that land. The lord would then protect the peasants and would pay the king, who was the most powerful noble. The towns that these people lived in were dirty as people disposed of their trash in the streets, which paved the way for the Black Death to become rampant.
We have every aspects of life’s requirements to our advantage such as education, homes, and prosperity. Therefore, we don’t follow the same rules that were going on during the Middle Age. In conclusion, I can say that the serfs who lived during the Middle Ages were treated unfairly and
All the punishments are awful. However, when Dante describes the punishments of those who committed violence against god he clearly shows his anger towards these people through the punishment he gave them. Those who are: simonists, fraudulent, magicians, diviners, and fortune tellers. The punishment for all the fraudulent is to be boiled in pitch and furthermore to have devils jab them with pitchforks. As for the other sins they have four punishments any of them could get such as: Face down in holes while their feet burn, being integrated with others forever, to wallow in ordure, and lastly being covered with sores and scabs from head to toe.
The class system that defined Europe during the Middle ages was very similar to the caste system implemented in India. These systems both had a single leader atop the order followed by wealthy landowners and intellectuals. In the Middle ages like India the lowest level of society was subjected to manual labor and harsh living conditions. Also, in both of these systems the gap between wealthy and peasant was extremely large. The people that gained from these conditions were the upper classes because they were able to make a lot of money off the back of these lower-class individuals.
While Europe did have countryside, it was often destroyed by war and most peasants lived in close quarters with animals. The Medieval period was often called the Dark Ages because
“ During the Middle ages much of Europe passed through a time of turmoil and confusion, of ignorance and lawlessness. Europe suffered a decline in commerce and manufacturing, in education, in literature and the arts, and in almost all that makes possible a high civilization. Europe became a a region of poverty-stricken farming communities, each virtually isolated from
During the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church had a great amount of power because it was the only one at the time. As expressed in The Canterbury Tales, it even oversaw the court, so one could propose that the Church had exponential power. They seemed to rule the economy and hold a lot of land. Kings and queens were even preceded by the Church. Supposedly, in those times, the Catholic Church was a source of great hypocrisy or a good number of its people were.
90% of medieval Europeans belonged to the peasant class – it was the lowest social class during this time. Peasants lived a hard life – a scarce diet, and long, tough work hours on farmland. Both male and female peasants worked in all types of farmland, however, the male peasants were expected by European society to provide food and protect their family
In the Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer utilizes the immoral character of the Pardoner to tell the utmost moral tale through satirical devices, presenting the true greed and hypocrisy that runs throughout the Church, regardless of it attempt to cover it. Chaucer introduces the hypocrisy within the Church through the characterization of the Pardoner, as he is explained to be a man with, “flattery and equal japes./He made the parson and the rest his apes” (“General Prologue” 607-608). “Japes” are tricks, alluding to the Pardoner’s relics, as they are fake; yet, the Pardoner still sells these relics to the Church members as genuine treasures. This creates dramatic irony, because the character of the Church body is unaware of the situation bestowed
Imagine having a whole kingdom ready to serve or sharing a small one room house with four other people, that is what it was like in the Middle ages. Life was either very difficult or very luxurious in the Medieval Times depending on who someone was and where they were in the social classes. It is unimaginable to know how hard it really was back then especially when everything is now so easy and almost done for everyone. The poor now would be considered higher middle class in the Middle Ages, because of this everyone worked harder for what they got unless you were born into the royal family. It was like winning the lottery to be born into a royal family but going bankrupt to be born to a servant's family.
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories that are verbally created as the Host requests that each pilgrim tell a story on the journey to Canterbury. Although this ultimately leads to conflict amongst the pilgrims, the entire spectrum of human personalities is presented by showing each character's qualities, flaws, and hypocrisy. In order to show multiple layers of perspectives, including that of the pilgrims, Chaucer as the narrator, and Chaucer as the writer, The Canterbury Tales is written as a frame narrative. The use of a frame narrative allows Chaucer to convey his own values in humanity by observing and reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of human nature.
The Behaviourist approach focuses on the role of the external environment and learning processes in determining our actions identifying personality as learnt whereas the psychodynamic approach argues that personality is caused by unconscious forces and not learnt. Personality is defined as ‘The distinctive and relatively enduring ways of thinking, feeling and acting that characterises a person’s responses to life situations’ (Holt et al., 2015, p.563). Behaviourists deem that parents can guide their children to be what they want them to be as children have no ‘talents’ while the psychodynamic approach claims that adult personalities are determined from childhood experiences . Behaviourism focuses on behaviour that can be monitored. As a result
For them, life was difficult. They had to work long, hard hours on the manor that belonged to their lord. Most peasants were farmers. Peasants did not have good food or clothing. They did not have the right to be educated.
