Canterbury Tales Essay: The Character of the Prioress

Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales became one of the first ever works that began to approach the standards of modern literature. It was probably one of the first books to offer the readers entertainment, and not just another set of boring morals. However, the morals, cleverly disguised, are present in almost every story. Besides, the book offers the descriptions of the most common aspects of the human nature. The books points out both the good and the bad qualities of the people, however, the most obvious descriptions are those of the sinful flaws of humans, such as greed and lust.

During the late middle ages, the power of the church was nearly unlimited; despite its holy mission the church was plagued by corruption and misconduct. Member’s of the clergy sold indulgences, bribed officials, and abandoned their vows. The religious characters in the Canterbury Tales are used to demonstrate the author's views of the Church. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses The Friar and the Nun in the “General Prologue” and The Pardoner in the “Pardoner’s Tale” to show the systemic corruption that is present in the church by exhibiting their immoral behavior. The Friar take from the destitute, the nun is overly concerned with the refined and the pardoner's only interested in the monetary gain.

Knights are one of the most mistaken figures of the medieval era due to fairytales and over exaggerated fiction novels. When medieval knights roamed the earth, it was known that they were only human and, like humans, had faults. These knights did not always live up to the standards designated by society. However, in The Canterbury Tales, the knight is revealed as a character that would now be considered a knight in shining armor, a perfect role model in how he acts and what he does. Modern day people see them as chivalrous figures instead of their actual role as mounted cavalry soldiers. As time passes, the idea of what a knight is changes from a simple cavalry soldier to a specific type of behavior.

The Prioress is portrayed as a simple, gracious, and charitable woman. The author does seem to hold a sympathetic view towards her, as he makes a point of extolling her virtues and neglecting to mention any of her

In the prologue Chaucer talks about many of the characters. He often tells stories and describes how they act and how they are. From being members in the church to having a good and bad reputation in the town, all the characters are unique in their own way. Chaucer describes the summoner, pardoner, and the friar by using indirect characterization in each of their stories.

In "The Prologue" of The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer has some religious characters who break the vows they pledge for, to get a place in the Church. Many characters in the story seem to have an awkward characteristic that the writer did not notice. Why do the religious characters break the vow? How do they break it? For example, the monk was a primary part of the church, but as you keep reading, the characters start to change in ways you could never imagine. Some character do not interact with each other depending upon their social class level. The vows that the religious characters break are the Vow of Poverty, the Vow of Chastity, the Vow of Obedience, and the Vow of Stability.

In the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer introduces a variety of characters with a multitude of personalities. From the despicable Summoner to the abrasive Miller, these characters are created with their own personalities and their own human failings. One common fault that characters share is hypocrisy. From pretending to be wealthy to cheating the poor out of money, hypocritical tendencies are abundant in the Canterbury Tales. Throughout the story, Chaucer ridicules the human criticizes the human failing of hypocrisy through the examples of the Pardoner, the Merchant, and the Friar.

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is a collection of stories by a group of pilgrims who are heading to Canterbury Cathedral. In this book, the pardoner and the reeve show antipodal characters in many ways. The pardoner is beautiful blonde hair man who is being loved by everyone. However he is very corrupted and smart and sells fake religious stuff to people saying very good compliment. On the other hand, the reeve is very serious and honest business man. He is very smart enough to know what criminals think and do. The pardoner story-tells a great example (or tale?) of seven deadly sins and reeve’s story is mocking of the miller. These very different characteristic men tell story telling that human beings are always punished for

The Wife of Bath begins the Prologue declaring, “Experience, though noon auctoritee / Were in this world, is right ynogh for me / To speke of wo that is in mariage" (GP 1-3). She had her first marriage at the age of twelve, an important key in Chaucer’s usage of age to show how it affects the amount of control one can have in a relationship. She also gives a brief explanation of why she marries these five men by saying “Blessed be God, that I have wedded fyve; / (Of whiche I ... the beste, / Bothe of here nether purs and of here cheste.)” (WP 44-46) By saying this, the Wife makes it known that throughout her marriages that money and sex have been important factors.

The manifestation of Chaucer’s perceptions lie in the actual tale as well as the prologue of The Wife of Bath when power is no more than momentarily relinquished to a man non-consensually through rape. Power is hastily regained by women when the rapist’s fate is put

This shows a double standard in the Prioress’s character. Although she is the most compassionate and loving woman, she is very anti-Semitic. She wants mercy for the little boy and anyone grieving for him, yet she supports the action of the Jews being hastily judged and hanged. Ames says, “Chaucer has portrayed the combination with such uncanny accurately that the Prioress seems a prototype of the pious lady who would not hurt a mouse but who would not stop a lynching of those outsiders she fears and hates.” (200)

The General Prologue - The Canterbury Tales The General Prologue The most popular part of the Canterbury Tales is the General Prologue, which has long been admired for the lively, individualized portraits it offers. More recent criticism has reacted against this approach, claiming that the portraits are indicative of social types, part of a tradition of social satire, "estates satire", and insisting that they should not be read as individualized character portraits like those in a novel.

The Canterbury Tales is a story that incorporates a multitude of stories told by a multitude of characters. Written by Geoffrey Chaucer, he devises a novel in which each character has to narrate a total of four stories as part of a competition; on their way to visit Saint Thomas Becket, the characters would tell two stories going and two stories returning from the journey. The perspective changes through each story, and each story is introduced by a general, opening, third person prologue. Though many of the characters got to share some ideas, Chaucer unfortunately passed away before his story’s entirety. As a result, a winner was never officially clarified. Needless to say, it is evident that the clear winner would be the Miller’s Tale.

       The characters introduced in the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales each represent a stereotype of a kind of person that Chaucer would have been familiar with in 14th Century England. Each character is unique, yet embodies many physical and behavioral traits that would have been common for someone in their profession. In preparing the reader for the tales, Chaucer first sets the mood by providing an overall idea of the type of character who is telling the tale, then allows that character to introduce themselves through a personal prologue and finally, the pilgrim tells their tale. Through providing the reader with insight about the physical and personal traits of

In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer comments on moral corruption within the Roman Catholic Church. He criticizes many high-ranking members of the Church and describes a lack of morality in medieval society; yet in the “Retraction,” Chaucer recants much of his work and pledges to be true to Christianity. Seemingly opposite views exist within the “Retraction” and The Canterbury Tales. However, this contradiction does not weaken Chaucer’s social commentary. Rather, the “Retraction” emphasizes Chaucer’s criticism of the Church and society in The Canterbury Tales by reinforcing the risk inherent in doing so.