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The Friar In The Canterbury Tales

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In Geoffrey Chaucer’s, The Canterbury Tales, I chose the Friar as the most immoral human being among the group of pilgrims Chaucer describes along his journey to Canterbury, the Friar exhibits several good things proving his detrimental humanity, but, as far as the religious guidelines go, the Friar breaks them all, he is not alone in this struggle however, as the Summoner and Pardoner also break 3 of the 4. But the Friar alone breaks all 4, which doesn’t necessarily discount him as a bad person in general, it just declares him unfit to be apart of the clergy class in ancient society, which was something you couldn’t just merely opt out of, you had to be excommunicated from the church in order to never be apart of the clergy, or apart …show more content…

The one to promise the vow of obedience, promises to listen to the word of God, “His brethren did no poaching where he went, for a wido the highest word among them, they vow to oblige the Abbot and elders of the church. The Friar presents himself in a very arrogant way, a very dictative, commanding, yet not-in-charge type, the Friar presents himself as the leader, but the vow dictates that he is not among them regardless, that he is lower than they. The last of the 4 vows that the Friar breaks, is the vow of stability; the pledge to simply stay within members of the community, of the church within the state that they reside in, the Friar breaks this vow very easily by wandering out with his friends on the pilgrimage to Canterbury at St. Augustine, the vow states in a common tone that they must travel alone in the journey, not with outside members of the church. Consequently, within Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, the Friar exhibits the traits of a good person, but not a member of the clergy, this is what the Friar fails to exhibit the good charm of, he is nowhere near the worst human being among the group, but he is the most morally incorrect in the entire

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The reader should now know Geoffrey Chaucer disapproves of the Church and deems it to almost only be full of hypocrites because of people such as the Friar and the Pardoner being a part of it and doing what sinful deeds they do against God and the followers who they are supposed to be protecting and taking care of. If it was not for the Parson existing, or even clergy members, then the generalization of him believing the entire Catholic Church was a hypocrisy would be entirely true, but that is not the case. Still, maybe Chaucer made such an implication because he had a bad past with the Church, but then again in the story he was traveling to a religious shrine, so he must not have such a bad past when it comes to Catholicism. There must have been a root to his disdain towards the Church as in, he was conned by a pardoner or a friar or even grew up seeing only hypocrisy from the Catholic Church, which could have molded his opinion of it. Instead of making, The Canterbury Tales, a full on attack against the Church, he decided to make it a comical, satirical piece, which was a very intelligent move by him.

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Calling the Church body “his apes” exemplifies the opinion Chaucer holds about the Church, as he believes they are like monkeys, blindly following others, unaware of their own stupidity. In terms of blindly following, the double entendre of the word “apes” comes into play, as it is defined as “imitating another person”. The members of the Church blindly imitate what they see in the Church, leading to a society of corrupted followers. Chaucer continues to present the hypocrisy prevalent in the Church through the character of the Pardoner, as he preaches, “For my intent is only pence to win,” (“Pardoner’s Prologue” 117). Through these lines, the audience receives their first image of the Pardoner’s satirical hypocrisy as, in his sermons, he preaches against greed while, at the same time, uses the guilt of his audience to feed his own.

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