What Is Chaucer's Use Of Satire In The Canterbury Tales

Social status typically defines a person’s character and creates societal expectation. For example, a clergyman is holy. Nobleman lives to a higher code. Peasantry will never amount to anything. Chaucer plays with these roles by creating characters that do not exactly live up to their stereotypes. He used irony, satire, and social views of the time period to get his point across. Some characters that are displayed in TCT are the Merchant, the Knight, and Pardoner. These characters are known to be a specific way, but as the author writes there label doesn't match with their behavior. Each role in the story is to be perceived in a certain way. But with the use of satire, the author changes the specific stereotype of a person. For example, the pardoner is portrayed as someone that he is not supposed to be. A pardoner is defined to be “ a layman authorized to raise money for religious works by granting papal indulgences to contributors”. However, the author uses satire by making the Pardoner someone else. In the story, the Pardoner says, “I preach for nothing but for greed of gain, And use the same old text, as bold as brass…”. He is supposed to be helping others but instead, he cheats people out of their money. This shows how his ambitions were not pure or for good, as, they are supposed to be.

In the General Prologue this is stated exactly, “...to ride abroad had followed chivalry, truth, honor, generousness, and courtesy.” In his story, he claims he follows this code. However, evidently, in The Wife’s of Bath’s Tale, this is not true. In this story, a knight “who was a lusty liver” took advantage of a “maiden walking forlorn”. This shows how the knight did not follow the codes. He was not only uncourteous to the maiden, but he threw generosity out the window. With no regard to her feelings and “spite of all she said, by very force, he took her