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Religion In The Canterbury Tales

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Throughout the Canterbury Tales, by Jeffrey Chaucer, it is evident that Chaucer used the tales to ridicule various subjects, including gender, religion, and society in order to point out the flaws in each of these respective topics. With regard to religion, Chaucer presents various flaws of the clergy and how most characters fail to truly assist society, and instead, pursue their own agenda. In the Summoner’s tale, he satirizes religion through the character of the Friar as he exposes the corrupt conduct of the Friar, and illustrates his lust for money and his dishonesty. Although the Friar is supposed to help the people and be free from a lust of worldly things, he continually attempts to con people out of their money through the false statements he makes. At the beginning of the tale, he goes house to house and begs for money assuring the …show more content…

He writes down the names of those who give him money, however, erases the names right after he leaves their house. Right off the bat, he is portrayed as a liar and deceiver by the Summoner as he takes money from those who are assured by the Friar that he will pray for them. The irony present in this example of corruptness is that Friars were not allowed to ask for any money and were to only take what was offered to them. In this tale, however, the Friar begs for money and begs for anything he can get his hands on for his own personal accord. Chaucer utilizes the irony to point out how many Friars were seen to be greedy for money and how they should have been removed from

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