How Does Chaucer Use Irony In The Pardoner's Tale

Satire is often regarded as one of the most effective ways to understand a society. It reveals the values of the society and serves as an amplifier for its ills. Mark Twain once said, “the human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.” Satire has long been a tool of political criticism, a means to make a moral point and to “attack vice and folly using wit and ridicule”. The word satire comes from the Latin word ‘satur’ and later ‘satura’ which translates roughly to poetic medley. Through the use of art, traditionally, prose and poetry, satire has continued to make a difference in shaping public consumption and perspective of news and encouraging activism, advocacy and civil participation.

Satire can be found everywhere around us, not just in our English classes. For instance, satire can be found in many television shows, newspaper articles, comics and many other places. Satire is used to criticize people`s stupidity or foolishness among many different issues through the use of irony, humor, and other rhetorical strategies. In other words, its main purpose is to mock a certain subject or person to expose the main issue to the audience. For instance, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Twain demonstrates the use of various rhetorical strategies, such as ironic and humorous language to satirize southern society`s hypocrisy toward education, religion and racism.

By its very definition, satire is the ridicule of human vices and foibles, and this Twain provides in abundance. By doing so, Twain is able to lighten the tone of the book that might otherwise come across as heavy or didactic. As a result, this book that could bore a person with such a morals-heavy lesson instead provides comedy.

Political and social satire go hand in hand in showing examples of the past and the future. While social satire mainly focus on the current problems of society, political satire can represent a warning about the future. Both types are important to learn and understand when reading works involving satire. Putting a light on satire will help people understand satire better. Educating students about satire in schools starting at a young age will allow for students to grow up with a better understanding of satire. Satire can play such an important role in novels that it is essential that everyone understands the concept. Understanding satire will allow for people to see different viewpoints of today’s society through the authors’ eyes. Satire can add humor to a piece, yet that humor can be revealing something much different. It is important for people to be able to differentiate from the two. People first need to understand satire to see the historical importance of it or understand the hidden warning it can

Satire is defined as “the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices” (“Satire”). Satire can be seen in all forms of media, where people are most likely to see it in today’s society. It comes in the form of movies, books, poems, songs, parodies, cartoons, and countless other ways.

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

On the other side, satire may offend some people. As much as it can lift up a topic, so does it can ruin those related to the issue. The negative comments it receives can fire up a whole other conflict and that leads to the possibility of harming the society. It can be deemed unimportant and immature.

The thought of swimming pools filled with money may fill some people with complete contentment. The world is filled with people who believe this is ok and commonly find ways that they may reach their goal. However, to groups this is considered a sinful injustice. Even in literature there are many times that the greediest of people are considered the antagonist. The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffery Chaucer, contains a short story known as “The Pardoner’s Tale” that addresses the issue of greed using irony to create an entertaining story.

1.1: Satire is a literary subgenre that express indignation towards an individual or something and can hold different objectives, be it moralistic, playful or simply of derision for someone or something. You can write it both in prose and verse, or alternatively submit a mix between these two forms.

Most of us might know that Chaucer's version of The Canterbury Tales is an old story but his version may just be the most famous. Chaucer has this problem with how things are done and the hypocrisy. ¨The love of money is the root to all evil.¨ According to the French the people in England always smelled. They were poor in sanitation and even when talking in German their breath would stink. He wrote this story in the language of the street. The Pardoner's Tale will not only show us greed and irony but it will also show us what someone can become capable of doing just to get money, even to their own blood. Chaucer will criticize the church hypocrisy.

The first place that Chaucer uses satire in is the church. There is this guy named the friar who runs the church and it has certain

Quintero perceives satirists as “writers of discontent,” (1) driven by the unjust feeling they receive from their society, they use craft to present this to the audience so that it can create a difference. Messages that would be ignored or punished if overtly declared are reaching millions of people in satirical form, and making a real difference. It may be the most powerful tool that critics utilize to get their opinions out into the world. (Lebouf 2). Modern satire have said to be used now to critique specific behaviors, or basically the use of the comic to ridicule a person who has a notable power in

Satire is a literary device used in “The Friar’s Tale”. The use of satire greatly impacts the purpose of Geoffrey Chaucer’s famous anthology and the motivation behind why he composed it. Satire is a technique that uses humor, irony, sarcasm, exaggeration, and mockery to expose human vices and follies (Mazzei). Therefore, it is prominent to understand that Chaucer used satire to negatively represent summoners amid the Middle Age time period. The purpose behind “The Friar’s Tale” was to ultimately make improvement in society. By doing so, numerous satirical writers, like Chaucer, seeked to enhance humanity and furthermore encouraged the people they condemned to overcome their flaws (Mazzei).

Chaucer wanted to portray and show the reader the troubles of life in medieval times without making it sound boring. Many readers find interest in reading humorous novels that give the story depth. As shown in the story about the pardoner and the general prologue, satire is used to Because of this, Chaucer decided to use satire to change the view or to make the reader aware of a new view by showing them the opposite view to be foolish and ridicule it. The purpose is not to harm or offend anyone but to form a new understanding for them in a new

Chaucer uses many techniques throughout his poem, such as making some of the female characters in his story ‘different’ than the “societal-norm”. The Wife of Bath, who has her own separate story, is quite different from the women you would normally read about in this time period. She had five husbands, she cusses and told dirty jokes, and she was the one giving advice to people in town, instead of the men. Chaucer gives a description of her that does not make her seem like the kind of woman who would be a “man’s object” and abide to whatever he says. The reader knows that Wife of Bath has more power than one would expect because the king gives her the