Geoffrey Chaucer 's The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer consists of frame narratives were a group of pilgrims that are traveling from Southwark to the shire of St. Becker in the Canterbury Cathedral, tell each other to pass time until they arrive at their destination. During The Canterbury Tales the reader is exposed to many characters that represent all of the social classes of medieval England and the reader gets to know them from the general prologue to each individual tale. One of these characters is the Pardoner, when the Pardoners is introduced he is described as the stereotypical pardoner of the Fourteen Century. The pardoner is describe as a crafty and a corrupt individual that will do anything to sell his pardons and relics. Nevertheless one of the most important characteristics that the Pardoner exhibits is his frankness about his own hypocrisy and sins. The pardoner accuses himself of fraud, avarice, and gluttony (the very things that he preaches against). During the Pardoners prologue, but most noticeable during his tale, the pardoners preach about how “Greed is the root of all evil”, and how our sins can lead cause our dismay.

Chaucer creates a multitude of female characters that are used to critique the current social order of his time some subtly and some overtly. He presents the audience with female Christian figures some of which represent a passive attitude and a meek demeanor to allow themselves to be used by the patriarchal dominated society; some Christian individuals who speak out against the authority that is placed upon the men in fourteenth century England whether or not they accept the idea of being subservient to men

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is a story of a contest who can tell the best tale. The rules of the contest were as follows: Each pilgrim would tell four tales for the trip to Canterbury, two on the journey there and two on the way back.. The tales will be judged by the Host for it’s entertainment and moral lessons. The winner of the contest will enjoy a meal paid for by the remaining pilgrims at the Host's Inn. “The Miller’s Tale” had fulfilled the criteria to win the contest. It was a shorter story, but it was entertaining and had a few lessons that can be learned from hearing or reading it. This story is significant because it does a great job of pointing out of some of the problems in the church during that time as well as how the morals of some people were not strong as well.

One definition of feminist is that “feminists are united by the idea that women‘s position in society is unequal to that of men, and that society is structured in such a way as to benefit men to the political, social, and economic detriment of women.” Even though the concept of feminism did not exist in the Middle Ages, Chaucer had started to

The story the Wife of Bath tells is of a knight who rapes a young lady and subsequently is condemned to death by King Arthur. Chaucer then satirizes the male patriarchy by having the queen take ability to pass judgement on the knight, not King Arthur. This exhibits the power of women over men. This act foreshadows the course of events, manifesting the knight as merely a puppet on a string. The queen gives the knight the choice between a year long quest or to be put to death. The quest the knight must complete is to find what women most desire by the end of the year or he will put to death, “I’ll grant you life if you can tell to me / What thing it is that women most desire. / Be wise, and keep you neck from iron dire!” (Chaucer 910-912). With one of the

Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales are considered a work of satire towards medieval society by many literary critics. Chaucer uses the Wife of Bath as a prime way to quip a key fourteenth century belief. During this era, medieval society is very hierarchal and hinders many people. One of the most notable groups that are restrained are women. The Wife of Bath is appalled by this. She is a progressive lady who implies that men are not in control of society. She infers that women are running everything from behind the curtain with men merely being used as puppets. As such, she narrates a tale that mocks male superiority and spouts a pro-women tale.

Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale” in The Canterbury Tales appears to be an illustration of feminism, one that showcases a female character’s progression in power in a primarily patriarchal society. However, beneath the simplistic plot of women’s empowerment, lies underlying themes of antifeminism in the character, Alison of Bath. Alison endorses the misogynistic role which she is fighting against with the objectification of her own body, her misinterpreted dictations of religion, and her fascination of sovereignty and dominance. Although Alison sees herself as a feminist, it is unlikely that men in the middle ages saw her the same way. She embodies the stereotypes of women in medieval literature; lustful, irrational, domineering, and a danger to a man’s salvation. Throughout the prologue and the tale, there are inconsistencies with what Alison preaches and how she behaves. That leads to the question, is Chaucer the forward-minded feminist he is often depicted as, or is Alison of Bath a mockery of the ideals of feminism and an illustration of what men thought of women at the time?

In The Canterbury tales, Chaucer uses The Wife of Bath as a representation of what it was like for Women in the Middle Ages to be striped of equality and bow to the otherwise male dominated society. For the representation of women Chaucer uses the Tales of “The Scholar”, “The Second Nun “The Reeve’s”, and “The Franklin” and many others in a very dry, pretentious manner to steer readers into the view of how a women of the Middle Ages should be as a so called “virtuous” wife or woman. The concept of marriage plays a major part in manifesting the idea of the issues of inferiority of women. The perception rendered as women having to be obedient and inferior figure to their husbands or male counter parts. Chaucer

Another character that is criticized in the Prologue is the Wife of Bath. Her character is larger than life. She is described as having wide hips, a hat as bigs as a boat, and, just in general, taking up a lot of space in the pilgrimage and in the story as a whole. The Wife dresses in expensive clothes such, Her kerchiefs were finely wove…/ I dare to swear those weighed a good ten pounds, /That on a Sunday she wore on her head” (Chaucer). Her physical appearance matches a medieval stereotype of a lustful person. This stereotype was seen in a person who could not control their passions. The Wife falls perfectly in line with this stereotype by telling the other characters how she has had five husbands. Having so many husbands has made her skilled in “the oldest dance” (Chaucer). With the Wife of Bath, Chaucer is laying out the stereotypical medieval state

In the reading "The Canterbury Tales" by Geoffrey Chaucer, the prioress do not meet the appropriate societal expectations for nuns and prioress. This happens due to the way that Chaucer describes ironically nuns and prioress as physical and spiritual individuals showing realistic facts about the life of nuns.

In the general prologue to Geoffrey Chaucer’s, The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer reveals his dissatisfaction of the distribution of power and how that power was maintained in the Medieval England estate system, through the use of his physical description of each of the pilgrims and by the personality of specific members of each caste. To portray these characters and the flaws that they represent in actual medieval society, Chaucer heavily relies on the use of irony to describe many of the travelers in ways that are complete opposites of how they should ideally be in society.

The Canterbury Tales; written by Geoffery Chaucer in the middle ages stands out as one of the key pieces of poetry from the time. The Canterbury tales consist of many tales told by pilgrims on their way to The Cathedral of St. Thomas A. Becket in Canterbury. Thirty pilgrims gathered for the voyage to the cathedral and all agreed to tell two tales there and two on the way back. The pilgrims on the trip all come from different background and all have different professions that will make each of their tales’ unique. The Friar’s tale carries unique components and lessons. The Friar’s prologue and tale will be elaborated in the most detail here.

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, the Franklin presents a tale which deftly examines the tension between ideal vs. reality. In a perfect world the marriage promise between Arveragus and Dorigen sets the tone for the rest of the tale by means of marital equality but in reality no good comes from it. Although “The Franklin’s Tale” is arguably the most equal out of all the Marriage Groups, its repetition of acts of magnanimity overpowers that equality and turns it into a kind of competition. The foundation of marriage between them is decided together and creates this method of balanced responsibility that is almost ideal but realistically unable to occur due to inherent gender and social expectations. The Franklin’s final question regarding who the most “free” at the end of the tale is very debatable because of the different types of “free” in Middle English. The Franklin zero’s in on that question for only the men and leaves out an important character. Because Dorigen and Arveragus both agreed to the terms of their marriage contract, it seems unfair to leave out Dorigen’s impact she has on the overall theme of “free”ness. So given that each character in this tale is in chain of promised service to another, the ambiguity of the final question proposed by the Franklin complicates the ability to judge who is the most “free” when including Dorigen.

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is a piece of work that resembles both a historical and sociological introduction the late middle ages. Chaucer’s ability to interpret basic human nature from different viewpoints is exemplified in the characters he created. I have selected two stories, The Prioress Tale and The Knights Tale, within the Canterbury Tales that manifest the strengths and weaknesses of human character. Than I will compare Chaucer’s pilgrims to figures portrayed by Dante in the Divine Comedy.

The Canterbury Tales was written by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1392, during the medieval period in Europe. Three important aspects, his family’s ties to the court, his schooling and working for royalty (XI), and his love for reading and learning (XII) all combined and enabled him to create his greatest work, The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer includes many different characters, pilgrims, all from very unique walks of life. Although there are not as many women included as men, their stories give some extraordinary insights on Chaucer’s views on the roles of men and women in medieval times. Christianity is the most common characteristic discussed, and clearly very important to Chaucer. The Prologue gives the reader a general over-view of each of the characters; he separates each character by his or her social class, religious life, and morality. The Prioress and The Wife of Bath tales further reveal his opinions on women 's roles and position in society. Chaucer makes it clear that men and women have very different roles and expectations; but they all either serve themselves, or others; and this is the trait that Chaucer uses to characterize a morally “good” or “bad” character, his characterization is not stipulated by social class or sex.