Religion spread with the messages of Christianity. “Every person, man, woman, child, slave, barbarian, no matter who, is made in the image of God and is therefore of enormous value in the eyes of God.” (Doc. C) Christianity promoted God loving everyone, no matter who they were in a world of hierarchy. “Here is a community that invites you, which makes you equal with all other members of that community.” (Doc. D)
Each tale reveals moral lessons that attempt to prevent the reader from performing the same mistakes as the character. “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Reeve’s Tale” possess similar themes, distinct differences arise in the topics presented in each passage. “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Reeve’s Tale” illustrates how greed corrupts men, how sin leads to more sin, and how revenge drives men to undertake foolish feats. The differences between Chaucer’s tales allows for a humorous yet insightful
With each tale, there are different events that occur in order to reach the main topic of these tales. Within the Knight’s Tale, the Wife of Bath’s Tale, and the Pardoner's Tale, Chaucer does a phenomenal job in having these tales represent the societal problems of his era. Geoffrey Chaucer uses the Knight’s Tale to explains how love can corrupt the trust between two cousins. The knight is telling the story of Palamon and Arcita, two prisoners of wars that are locked up in a prison in the city of Athens. One day, the two look outside the prison window and see a fair young lady called, Emily.
Chaucer wrote the book: The Canterbury Tales, in which a group of men going on a journey all tell a tale. Within each tale is a moral lesson as well as each tale consists of a corrupt action committed within the church and is conveyed by those kind of characters within the story. One of the tales that Chaucer tells in his book is called: The pardoner 's tale. Within this tale the pardoner (who is telling the tale) is a preacher who often gives sermons but admits that he does is solely for money and not to condemn people of their sins. (Greed)
A comparison to this would be The Lorax by Doctor Seuss except, in the Skipper’s Tale it is more focused on money than “truffula trees”(Doctor Seuss, The Lorax). Like Doctor Seuss Chaucer uses criticisms to generate his themes. In the first and second pages of the Skipper’s Tale, feminism is used strongly to give a sense of time era. By using “But since I am a wife, I shouldn’t be Telling a soul about our privacy…
The miller, in a drunken stupor, tells a tale of a love affair between a married woman and a younger man. The married woman, Alison, marries an older fellow and is then presented with the opportunity to cheat on him with a young scholar. Alison agrees and plays an awful trick on her husband so she and her new lover may be alone. The wife of bath is an incredible character in and of herself. The wife of bath starts with a long prologue, telling of her copious husbands and fondness of sex.
Geoffrey Chaucer has greatly influenced English literature with many of his works. He comprised more than twenty tales in his most famous collections The Canterbury Tales. There are several of his many tales that expresses love, marriage, and romanticism to display an important message. The Merchants Tale in particular refers marriage and love between the characters. First, the story introduces the narrator Chaucer, whom tells the story of a knight.
At first the friends were all going to split the gold but as time went on greed changed them. Once the money was introduced in the story the friends turned on each other. Chaucer was really good about explaining his ideals about lust in “The wife of Bath’s Tale”. The main character was The Knight, one day he saw a beautiful lady I couldn’t resist temptation in lust and raped her in lines (30- 38). His consequence to his bad action was a death penalty by the queen,
He also utilized fabliaux to fill his stories with multiple sexual accounts that poke fun at the rules of courtly love. Chaucer’s humor had three main components – mockery, irony, and sadism. John, an older carpenter, with a young wife, is at the center of “The Miller’s Tale.” Chaucer mocks John for marrying a younger woman and the fact that their relationship does not follow the rules of courtly love. Courtly love suggests that jealousy strengthens relationships and equates to love.
The Miller describes this disgusting action as “ingenious”. This shows that men of this time thought invading a woman’s privacy was acceptable and that they didn’t care about women’s feelings. This means that they expected women to be submissive. After pledging her allegiance to Nicholas, Absolon comes to Allison and asks her for a kiss. Before Allison plays a prank on Absolon, she tells Nicholas: “Now hush, my lord, and you will laugh your fill,” (233).
Throughout The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer illustrates to the reader the true characteristics of the Miller and the Reeve by using the aspect of morality to show their related views on love and women. Love, to both the Miller and the Reeve, is frequently associated with beauty, lust, and sexual intercourse. Their vision of love is consistent in both stories; indicating that they care mostly about the women’s physical appearances. This can be easily seen in the stories by the way that the women are described and portrayed. Neither of Chaucer’s story tellers offer much insight into the women’s intelligence or mental characteristics.
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.
In Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Miller’s Tale” he uses symbolism as a literary element to create an underlying Christian theme that portrays the characters in the story as biblical figures. Each character of the story represents a different figure from the bible such as, Nicholas and Alisoun representing Adam and Eve, John the carpenter representing a Great Divine and Absolon representing The Devil. Throughout the story, there are many different aspects that highlight the Christian theme and allow the readers to truly see this interpretation. Throughout the story readers may recognize the alignment between Nicholas and Alisoun and Adam and Eve.
According to William E. Mead ‘the evils of matrimony, […], were a favourite theme in the Middle Ages’ . This means that marriage was a recurring topic and especially marriages that had trials and problems to overcome. Indeed, in the Canterbury Tales Chaucer uses for some of his tales the setting of marriage. In this essay, the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and the Franklin’s Tale will be used to demonstrate how Chaucer represented marriage and what possible functions could it have. With functions I mean in the texts as part of the plot as well as how marriage functions as a plot device.
When he comes across a decrepit lady who makes him a deal, it saves his life. Subsequently, she forces the Knight to marry her. He’s compelled to corporate, and marries the old and hideous lady. During the story, Chaucer says, “He who accepts his poverty unhurt I’d say is rich although he lacked a shirt.
