Evil And Innocence In Chaucer's The 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 has created many characters in the Canterbury tales that he likes and many he dislikes. He is a very critical and detailed writer about these characters. With these characters, Chaucer has created real life issues with religious figures. Chaucer’s has showed how good religious figures can be and how corrupt they can be as well.

The Canterbury Tales were written and pieced together in the late 1380's, early 1390's.  The author of the book is Geoffrey Chaucer.  When considering the structure of the tales, one can deduce that they were put together using Framework Narrative, a very unique style of writing.  The opening prologue speaks of 29 pilgrims, including Chaucer, who are all on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. All of them are seeking a certain shrine for spiritual cleansing, and relief.  The journey was to be long, but in the end it would all be worth it.  Chaucer's social views and prejudices are revealed through his description of the pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales.

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.

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 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.

Throughout the story, The pardoner's Tale, Chaucer writes of topics often still written about today. He mentions greed, violence, and death. The characters he creates are especially memorable and can be compared to characters in modern literature which makes it easier to understand. Chaucer writes about a group of quarreling rioters who’s lack of intelligence helps add some comedy to the story. He also adds in a wise, yet “very poor old man”(174) who indirectly hints at what would help them find “a privy thief… called Death”(173) that they seek. Chaucer's memorable rhetoric is capped off when the men find greed, in the form of a large sum of gold, which causes them to conspire and kill each other. In the end they found the Death they were looking for. This clever storytelling makes the plot particularly clear and straightforward compared to The Wife of Bath’s drawn out vagueness. Chaucer's easily relatable characters and cleaver but understandable plot make The Pardoner's Tale much more

There is no question that contradictory values make up a major component of The Canterbury Tales. Fate vs. Fortuna, knowledge vs. experience and love vs. hate all embody Chaucer's famous work. These contrasting themes are an integral part of the complexity and sophistication of the book, as they provide for an ironic dichotomy to the creative plot development and undermine the superficial assumptions that might be made. The combination of completely contradictory motifs leads to the unusual stories and outcomes that come to play out in the tales. And these outcomes draw focus on the larger universal issues that in many cases transcend the boundaries of vernacular periods to all of

Innocence is beautiful. The three rakes and the young boy illustrate the most simplest form of innocence, which reserves the revelation of evil. In The Pardoner, the three rakes insist on discovering who “smote the man’s heart in two” (Chaucer 349). The murder, Death is dangerous and the rakes courageously took this opportunity to help themselves and others from the danger. This demonstrates the rakes ability to want to improve other people's lives while also showcasing the righteousness they contain. The murderer, Death, “shall be slain” and the three men “pledged their word of honor to live and die for the other, / As though each were the other’s brother born” (371-374). Chaucer demonstrates the virtue these men have for themselves and for each other. Although, they drink too much, they still embody supportive and honorable friends. The hope that “death shall be dead, if they catch him” (381) depicts the beauty in their hopes and innocence. The beauty of the widow’s son, seven years of age, in The Prioress tale, it paints the unknown

Throughout centuries human beings have evolved, but various traits of human nature remain the same. An epic poem named “The Canterbury Tales” written by Geoffrey Chaucer provides examples that demonstrate traits of human nature that are still relevant in our world today even if this piece of literature was written hundreds of years ago.The Canterbury Tales is framed by having multiple people from different social lives and statuses share stories which demonstrates how these pilgrims think and act, in other words their human nature, on their way to the martyr St. Thomas in a pilgrimage. These characters portray different traits of human nature such as having religious aspirations, falling in love, and thinking in an evil way in their stories which are all still lively relevant in today's society.

This section of the paper with compare Hanawalt’s thesis of good and ill repute, with the ideas of a medieval English writer named Geoffrey Chaucer. Although Chaucer wrote tales, which at times can seem outlandish, he had the ability to capture both the personalities of people, as well as the society of this time. Within one of Chaucer’s works called “The Canterbury Tales”, a character named the Wife of Bath tells her personal story of being abused by her husbands. After telling her story of abuse, the Wife of Bath states the badness within men is not natural, but a product of society. The wife of bath believes that people are shaped and molded by society, and because of society, people can become either good or bad. The idea of Chaucer’s

Negative imagery is used by Chaucer to undermine the effects of the narrator’s words. The manners practiced by the prioress are described by

The Root of Evil Exposed in The Pardoner's Tale   "The root of all evil is money."   Because this phrase has been repeated so many times throughout history, one can fail to realize the truth in this timeless statement.   Whether applied to the corrupt clergy of Geoffrey Chaucer's time, selling indulgences, or the corrupt televangelists of today, auctioning off salvation to those who can afford it, this truth never seems to lose its validity.   In Chaucer's famous work The Canterbury Tales, he points out many inherent flaws of human nature, all of which still apply today.

The woman was fair skinned and her body was slim. She wore a stripped silken

The Bible, defined as a collection of sixty-six scriptures that compose the Old and New Testament. For a number of people, including catholics and religious officials, this holy script can be the final word between what is morally and religiously right and wrong. A biblical quotation, Radix malorum est cupiditas is Latin for avarice is the root of all evil. In the frame narrative, The Canterbury Tales, there is no limit to the use of religious and moral connections that the fictional characters present. The Wife of Bath and the Pardoner show their cupidinous for money through the prologues and tales. In the prologue told by the Wife of Bath, she uses the Bible to justify her actions to the other characters, as having multiple suitors is presented in the Bible. Her need to justify herself comes from the marriage of multiple wealthy decrepit men as each yielded an immense inheritance. This shows not only her justification of having remarried but her avidity for money. The Pardoner also references the Bible in his prologue to demonstrate his superiority when compared to the people he sells pardons and fake relics to as he admits his sin but takes the money of the guilt ridden people. The Pardoner’s main argument consists of simple yet intelligent logic, why would the people be buying the fraudulent items if they had not done anything for which they were necessary? His tale also references money, which leads to