In this essay, I am giving three reasons as to why The Canterbury Tales' stories are so engaging. I will be talking about the vitality and humanity of the characters in three parts: how realistic the characters are, the emotion they show and the flaws in all of the characters. This will be in three separate paragraphs. Vitality (realism) The Canterbury Tales shows us lots of small details about everyday life in medieval times and gives us a big insight into what the life of ordinary people was like back then.
The pardoner's tale, featured in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, was focused on the moral sways of men from the influences of greed. This tale was played out to reflect what Chaucer believed to be the foolish attempt to cheat death through the buying of indulgences, which had become wide spread at this time. The tale began with three drunk men playing dice. One of them got the idea that he would go out and kill death. The others agree and the three drunkards swear an oath to never forsake each other and thus they depart to find death.
In Chaucer's collection of stories known as "The Canterbury Tales," "The Miller's Tale" is a humorous story that subverts the standards of courtly love and passion. The concept of courtly love was prevalent in medieval literature. In courtly love, a noble lover would adore a lady from a distance and serve her, often at the expense of tremendous personal sacrifice. Chaucer uses this time-honored literary form in "The Miller's Tale," in which he lampoons the overdramatized feelings and behavior of people who are not in the least bit noble.
The Wife of Bath is a very outgoing young woman who is seated next to the Nun and the Cook in order to cause a ruckus during dinner. Considering the Wife of Bath is very dramatic and high-maintenance, she is appalled to find out that she is sitting next to the bold Cook who does not mind to cover his large sore on his leg. He was also part of the hardworking middle class which the Wife of Bath found completely insulting to be sitting next to her since she was so selfish and only cared about her appearance. To her right was the Nun who was almost as materialistic as herself. They would get along just fine and could have a easy conversion, however, they would strive to be better than the other.
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.
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales have provoked controversy for nearly 500 years. Canterbury Tales used everyday characters to point out the faults in 1500’s society. Chaucer used characters from religious figures, peasants, and even royalty. To this day, Chaucer’s smart, and witty department of people and what they do remains true to real life. When asked the question of who Chaucer would use in a modern setting, the choice is very clear.
No matter where people will go, there will always be standards and rules that they will always have to follow. No matter what they do in life, these standards and rules will still be there. Just like today, pilgrims also have rules and standards. Many others did not follow the standards and rules. The Host, in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, demonstrates the standards of the Medieval Period by following all the rules as an upright citizen as a commoner.
In The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer, he found most people to be “liars,” especially the religious leaders. Although, not “liars,” but more he sees them as corrupt and deceptive. In the time that Chaucer was around, corruption in the Catholic Church was very prevalent and they sold indulgences out of greed and deception. Chaucer writes about the deception in all groups of people, and their hypocrisy in the way they try to justify their actions. Chaucer’s point of view on his society seems to be very negative towards the way most of society lives their lives out of greed.
Through The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer shows how love is portrayed in a completely different light based on whether you are a part of the lower or upper class. Through his descriptions of Emily in “The Knight’s Tale” and Alison in “The Miller’s Tale”, Chaucer envisions woman as the source of two different types of love based on the social class she belongs to. The upper class version of love would be presented as something noble in the way the male goes about trying to earn the woman’s love. In the upper class version love it takes far more of an effort to win the girl over and it must be done in a polite/kind manner. The lower class type of love contains far more primal tactics, in which the male does not have to try very hard to have the woman leave behind her current partner for the new male.
erased. It “occurs throughout Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales” (Weisl, 118). However, the relationship that these two have, carry no restrictions to expressing their sexuality, and gay marriage didn’t exist, presumably. So, their homosexual closeness enabled them as agents to freely “adult” with others that a heterosexual marriage was restricted by.
Chaucer uses many standards and facets of courtly love in The Canterbury Tales; most notably in the “Knight’s Tale.” The purpose of this paper is to debate and conclude whether Chaucer depicts courtly love as mockable or something to be
1. In the anthology book, The Canterbury Tales (1478), Geoffrey Chaucer implies that it is the best to have something in moderation as it is better than having too little or too much of one thing as it can cause trouble depending on the situation involved. The author supports this claim by showing how too much cleverness and cunningness led Nicholas to get branded by Absolon but also shows how John, the carpenter, having too little cleverness and cunningness was taken advantage of and constantly fooled throughout the take because of that. The author’s purpose is to show the importance of moderation in order to explain how by not having this ability or skill to know what is and what is not enough was the main conflict that led the main charters to downfall in the tale.
Canterbury tales is the work of Chaucer to which most of the clergy were filled with hypocrites and liars. With each description it becomes ever present how the church was corrupted by corrupt religious leaders. Leaders who dabbled in gluttony, lust, greed, and bribery just so they could make money or make themselves happy instead of God. Luckily, there was one who actually stuck to the word throughout his life, as he wanted to be an exemplary Sheppard and help lead his sheep out of the mud, he is The Parson.
In the Canterbury Tales, there are two types of love that is expressed. The two types can be recognized as romantic love and courtly love. Throughout these character introductions, the readers are able to see which people are involved in these types of relationships. The Wife of Bath is one of the only characters in the Canterbury Tales that is a perfect example of romantic love. Although both kinds of love are present in the middle ages, times have changed and the way society looks at these types of love are completely different than what they use to be.
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.
