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Use of satire in the canterbury tales
Use of satire in the canterbury tales
Use of satire in the canterbury tales
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Chaucer wrote The Pardoner's Tale with the ideas of hypocrisy in mind. He attacks this subject with a thorough use of personification and irony in his story telling. Chaucer captivates these rhetorical techniques multiple times throughout the piece. He brilliantly personifies the ideas of greed and death, as a walking man. He also displays irony throughout the story with also the ideas of greed and death.
Chaucer’s Use of Irony and Personification Geoffrey Chaucer has a crater on the moon named after him. Here on Earth, he’s most famous for the Canterbury Tales. One of the best known stories in the collection is “The Pardoner’s Tale.” One reason it is so popular is because Chaucer uses personification and irony throughout the tale. Death is personified by every character in the story.
The Canterbury Tales depicts the differing levels of society of the Medieval period. The tales with the most notable differences are “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Reeve’s Tale.” The former story is about three men consumed by greed, which ultimately leads them to their h. The latter tale is about two clerks who seek revenge on a miller who steals grain from their school. “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Reeve’s Tale” drastically differ in their moral themes that depict revenge, sin, and greed. “The Pardoner’s Tale” illustrates the effects of revenge, sin, and greed.
Chaucer’s gift, The Canterbury Tales continues to give and the reader can derive different ideas and responses, and details for each creative character within the brilliantly raveled and thought out tale. One of Chaucer’s characters The Pardoner possibly holds the most detail and material in his appearance and actions which the reader can easily extract from and respond too which possibly holds importance as they tell the reader certain things about the character. The author’s illustration of The Pardoner begins with the description of his hair from behind as a yellow wax like color, falling in “driblets” behind his back, “Thinly they fell, like rat-tails, on by one” (21). He rode on his mount with his wallet before him and a pillow case crammed with relics such as, The Virgin’s veil, bones of saints, and pieces of The Holy Cross, all tricks and no truth in their supposed identity. This deceiver made more than a parson would from the poor and innocent who fell prey to the con, and “made monkeys of the priest and congregation” (22).
Written in the midst of a cultural and religious revolution, Chaucer’s The Monk’s Tale sets a stage for the medieval times and unfolds layers of society that seemed to be invisible to the rest of the world. The Monk 's Tale interweaves ecclesiastical law and royal law by showcasing an anthology of pure tyrants, meant to provide commentary on the struggles of the English monarchy and the people of 14th century Europe. Chaucer illustrates that tyranny applies not only to a king but any person or group that holds immense power over others. The Monk 's Tale reflects 14th century England through implications of the natural law that formed the medieval ideals of monarchy and the concepts that define the nature of tyranny.
In The Canterbury Tales, readers met so many religious figures who amount to a pure source of hypocrisy and contradiction such as the Friar, the Pardoner, the Nun, and more. Geoffrey Chaucer, the author, brought a delightful dose of sarcasm in various descriptions of the religious characters
In the Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer utilizes the immoral character of the Pardoner to tell the utmost moral tale through satirical devices, presenting the true greed and hypocrisy that runs throughout the Church, regardless of it attempt to cover it. Chaucer introduces the hypocrisy within the Church through the characterization of the Pardoner, as he is explained to be a man with, “flattery and equal japes./He made the parson and the rest his apes” (“General Prologue” 607-608). “Japes” are tricks, alluding to the Pardoner’s relics, as they are fake; yet, the Pardoner still sells these relics to the Church members as genuine treasures. This creates dramatic irony, because the character of the Church body is unaware of the situation bestowed
In the Canterbury Tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer, satire is shown in many characters throughout the poem. The Friar, Monk, and Pardoner may seem like normal, and worthy people, but their true colors will show. Satire brings out the true characteristics of each character. The Frair, Monk, and Pardoner all have something in common. They are all suppose to be holy religious figures.
Chaucer also uses satire in a more comical way to illustrate how women can’t keep a secret. The Wife of Bath reveals this trait when she says “by heaven, we women can’t conceal a thing” (Chaucer 341), mocking the suggestion that women have an inability to keep a secret. Chaucer also makes fun of the knight’s condition using the irony of women being incapable of keeping a secret as the only thing that can save him. Mocking women and their incapability to not share private information only further reveals Chaucer’s satire.
The relationship is seen between the teller of a tale and the story that he or she chooses to share. Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, presents several stories of moral awareness and human desire. These tales are tales of vice and virtues each told from a demographically different view point and each travelers’ tales reflect on the teller’s personal traits. A major theme seen in The Canterbury Tales, is that one tale is simply a retelling of the previous tale but with a repayment to the teller of the previous tale.
Expectations usually come when a new person tells you a description about themselves. For example, when someone introduces themselves as a lawyer, upright, deceitful, and being able to argue with others are associated with the one word. Yet, Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales defies these expectations when introducing a person and then describing the opposite of what the reader expected. Under deeper analysis, Chaucer is seen to emphasize certain characteristics through figurative language. Within lines 413-446, Chaucer emphasizes the doctor’s contrasting qualities through the imagery, alliteration and rhyming couplets.
The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer, reveals that religion does not make moral individuals. Chaucer goes on about telling how several of the characters on the pilgrimage had questionable lifestyles yet the characters were taking part in a religious journey. Religion can only influence a moral character but does not make its followers untouchable to the imperfections found on earth. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer’s character, The Pardoner, is a church official who altered the peoples mind by cheating the people into believing any nonsense.
He uses Satire in his writings to get his message across to the common people during the 1300’s. Satire is defined as the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people 's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues. The main story Chaucer uses satire to criticize the community in which he lives is in his stories the Canterbury Tales. “Despite its distracting tone, there are several important issues at the center of this debate. Questions of puns in Chaucer are not always undecidable, nor need their existence be dependent solely on critical ingenuity or moral delicacy”(Dane).
In “The Canterbury Tales” Chaucer illustrates the corruption of the church through the religious characters in both the tales and the prologue and their obsession with money. Illustrating the fact that medieval England, the church had a big impact on the lives of people due to them being able to “read” the bible. In many cases, this was uses to manipulate people into giving their money to church. Throughout the tales, people are shown to stand up to the church and beat them at their own game and this provides the ideal response to church corruption.
He uses the characters in his stories to help him achieve his goal while writing. Geoffrey Chaucer uses satire to reveal corruption, critique patriarchy, and appraise class and nobility. Chaucer 's use of satire aided him on revealing the corruption of the church. In his story, “The Canterbury Tales,” he shows that many members of the church use their positions for their own personal gain.
