A Modern Take On Chaucer 's Canterbury Tales

In the late 1300s Geoffrey Chaucer began wrote The Canterbury Tales, a story which follows the religious journey of twenty-nine people, who represent many aspects of Medieval society, to the Canterbury Cathedral in southeast England. While on the pilgrimage the host of the tavern, where all the pilgrims meet, suggests that the pilgrims each tell a story for the group’s entertainment. Chaucer intended for all the voyagers to tell two stories, but he unfortunately died before he could finish the book and only got to write one story apiece. However, the goal of the storytelling contest is to tell the most moral story possible, and the one who wins receives a free meal, which the rest of the pilgrims will pay for. Although some of the other stories have good moral messages, “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” are on different ends of the moral spectrum. “The Pardoner’s Tale” focuses on a pardoner who preaches against greed. While “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” exemplifies what all women want in their relationships: power. Although both “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” demonstrate the value of the opinion of elders, the stories differ in their moral values and their storyteller’s values.

    Chaucer's view of the clergy class is not as positive as his view of the ruling class.  For example, Chaucer describes the Prioress/Nun using a great amount of satire.  He speaks of how the nun has excellent etiquette and manners.  She tries so hard to be respected and viewed as one with higher status.  Her character is best described in the quote:

Yes I do believe that Chaucer's intent was to capture life in all it's teeming glory. Chaucer's stories all describe times in the world when things were good. There was never a negative ending to any of the tales that he wrote. Inside his tales he makes it seem likes things are always going to end bad in some sort of way for reason, but chaucer usually makes every story have a happy ending for everyone.

The Canterbury Tales is a poem written by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1392. In this poem each character tells four stories, two on the way there and two on the way home, to provide entertainment for the people on the pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral. One part of Chaucer’s tales that truly stands out is the character prologue where he introduces all of the characters on the pilgrimage and conveys the narrator’s opinions of them using satire and other literary devices. Of characters that Chaucer’s narrator describes, two are the Parson and the Friar. Both of the characters share similarities in their social status and job position however greatly contrast in morals and character. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses contrasting characteristics to convey an idea that teaches that power does not always lead to corruption.

In the 1300’s, Chaucer wrote a controversial story critiquing the things around him. Chaucer has a clean agenda, and he knows he’s going to upset many people. One way for chaucer to get around being held responsible for the ideas in his writing, is by creating characters address the issues. By holding his characters responsible for horrendous actions, he is able to place a sense of skepticism in the minds of his readers. In the world, we see many examples of this; people can get away with saying anything, because they claim to be reporting from another source. If chaucer were to add to his writing today, he may add a few different characters; such as, a teacher, an actor, and an olympian.

In 476 CE, the Roman Empire was overthrown by the Germans, ended its rule in the western Europe for over a thousand years. In the 14th century, one of the world’s greatest cultural movement, the Renaissance, started to emerge from Italy and soon spread to the rest of the Europe. However, the scholars cannot find anything special to mark this transitional period from 5th to 15th century and so called it the Middle Age or the Medieval Era. Nevertheless, the Middle Age is not just an era in between of the these two significant historical events. The unique culture during the Middle Age is reflected on literatures such as The Canterbury Tales. By describing the stories told by pilgrims from different classes, The Canterbury Tales provided overall perceptions of women during the Medieval Era.

In the medieval age there are norms that people in a society are supposed to abide by. In this time, there was a lot of wars dividing the nations and changed how people lived. The black plague also devastated the nation in many ways. During this time, if you weren't a noble or part of the church, then you didn't really have any power or voice in your society. Chaucer uses elements of the other or otherness to satire religion, social structure, and patriarchal institutions to show how corrupt these groups are in hope to change people’s mind about these groups and institutions.

Throughout The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer describes his characters in ways that would seem to be stereotypical. With characters like the knight who had great honor and chivalry, and others like the summoner who was a rude, drunk. Every character has a different trait about them that sets them apart from the others. Whether they were considered acceptable or not back then. All of these stereotypes help give a realistic view of how people were back in Chaucer’s time.

Rwote about in 1386, Canterbury Tales revels the many caracteristics of midieval society. As a religious, medieval society were dependant to God, had divergent attitudes (hypocrisy and sincerity), respected mariage, accepted polygamy and gave a great value to virginity and continance.

"Avarice is the root of all evil" (6). He explains to the pilgrims how money is the root of

1. What is the most popular time of year for pilgrimages? The popular time of the year is april.

In Geoffrey Chaucer 's The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses the climax of The Wife of Bath 's Prologue to illustrate how through the influence of the church, the figure of the wife, was seen either as week or evil. Chaucer makes this point by using religious terms and imagery, like sister and smite, and the symbol of the lion. After establishing this point, he then shows how damaging this idea can be, by showing how hollow and disturbing the relationship between the wife and her husband becomes, when the husband is in the submissive role, through the use of homonyms and objective language.

“Chaucer’s career in the royal service began in 1357, when he was appointed to the household of Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster, and her husband Prince Lionel.” His father sent him to serve as a page for the royals, allowing him to evade becoming a merchant and carry on the family business. The job was a low-level position that

It is clear that Geoffrey Chaucer was acutely aware of the strict classist system in which he lived; indeed the very subject matter of his Canterbury Tales (CT) is a commentary on this system: its shortcomings and its benefits regarding English society. In fact, Chaucer is particularly adept at portraying each of his pilgrims as an example of various strata within 14th century English society. And upon first reading the CT, one might mistake Chaucer's acute social awareness and insightful characterizations as accurate portrayals of British society in the late 1300s and early 1400s. Further, one might mistake his analysis, criticism, and his sardonic condemnation of many elements of British culture for genuine attempts to alter the

The rioters in "The Pardoner's Tale" set our to kill Death because they are afraid to die themselves. They assumed if they killed Death, they wouldn't have to die and also they would live in dignity because they have killed God's adversary. They believed a reward would be at hand given by God to satisfy their lust for their personal desires from others. Also in their drunken rage, liquor had affected their judgment and behavior, and now they believe being haughty and brave in the eyes of the public will spare them from death.