How To Be Punished In The Canterbury Tales

The purpose of the pilgrim's journey through hell is to show, first hand, the divine justice of God and how Christian morality dictates how, and to what degree, sinners are punished. Also, the journey shows the significance of God's grace and how it affects not only the living, but the deceased as well. During his trip through hell, the character of Dante witnesses the true perfection of God's justice in that every sinner is punished in the same nature as their sins. For instance, the wrathful are to attack each other for all eternity and the soothsayers are forever to walk around with their heads on backwards. Furthermore, Dante discovers that hell is comprised of nine different circles containing

Circles six through nine are those who have committed a more serious, heinous crime than those in one through five. “For Dante, the most serious crimes are those of betrayal.” (Pg 788, Chevigny) Circle six is the introductory of lower levels. The theme of this level is heresy. Those who have questioned or attempted to stray from church reside here. The people of level six are in tombs that are on fire. This is a slight preview of the hell we think of today. To question the Christian faith and to knowingly and openly think that there is no afterlife, but instead believe that the soul dies with the body is the best to describe their punishment. People become aware of a heaven or hell the moment they die. And once that hit that moment, it’s too late to decide whether or not there is such existence. For that reason, they are forever stuck in their tombs (or modern day caskets) and live in constant sensation of being burned.

Canterbury Tales Compared to Dante's Inferno This study will explore the themes of innocence and guilt in the "Hell" section from Dante's Divine Comedy and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The study will focus on the uses each author makes of urban and more natural settings to convey messages about innocence and guilt. While both Dante and Chaucer make use of this motif in making their thematic points, a great difference exists between them. Chaucer's primary purpose is to present a humorous and compassionate portrayal of human existence including innocence and guilt, or goodness and evil while Dante's essential purpose is moral and instructional.

Dante’s The Inferno is his own interpretation of the circles of hell. The people that Dante places in hell tried to validate their offenses and have never seen the injustice of their crime or crimes. They were each placed in a specific circle in Hell, Dante has nine circles in his hell. Each circle holds those accountable for that specific crime. Each circle has its own unique and fitting punishment for the crime committed. There are three different main types of offenses; they are incontinence, violence, and fraud. These offenses are divided into Dante’s nine rings of Hell. Each of these rings has a progressively worse punishment, starting with crimes of passion and

While most people were fine with ignoring what the Popes were doing to the Church, there were men who, throughout the medieval period, did their best to expose and spread the news of what was really going on behind the scenes in the Church. The first of these dissenters was a florentine noble, who was exiled from the city because of the influence of Boniface VII. In his banishment Dante Alighieri wrote several books including Dante's Inferno. In it he describes hell as being made of concentric rings, each one further down in the earth, smaller then the last, and housing a sin Dante deemed worse. Down in the eighth of nine circles is where we find where Dante has planned for Boniface VII to go. This is his way of shaming the clergy of the time, because the eighth circle is where the simmers go and it is full of Popes, one of them even mistakes Dante for Boniface VII and tells him that he is destined for this circle. A little after Dante's time comes the work of Geoffrey Chaucer, the son of two vintners who grew up to be around royalty the rest of his life. His most famous work, The Canterbury Tales, describes the journeys of several pilgrims on their way to see the bones of Thomas Beckett, and through many of the pilgrims and their stories depicts the flaws of the church in often humorous ways. Like the Pardoner's Tale for example, where the Pardoner tell of his sin of simony through three friends who get drunk, find lots of money in the woods, and end up killing

The sinners there are stuck into pits head first with only their feet sticking out. The souls struggle while flames constantly hit their feet. Dante notices a sinner who is getting hit with even more flames than the others. That sinner is Pope Nicholas III, who admits he was guilty of simony (the buying or selling of ecclesiastical privileges) At first the Pope thinks Dante is someone else referring to him as Boniface. Dante corrects him then he explains to Dante how there are worse sinners who are still on Earth who will get an even worse punishment than him. Dante then leaves for the Fourth

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

Rape is a topic not normally expanded on and taken on as an easy topic to explore. In the Canterbury tales the subject of rape tends to be focused on, and often seen as an everyday occurrence. The object of consent, whether it stems from a man or women, does not seem play a role in ones decision making. Often we see individuals justifying there sexual aggression as lust, treating individuals as an object, being used to satisfy there sexual desires and not as a human being itself. Geoffrey Chaucer provides an inside look of rape with the Canterbury Tales, he reveals the truth about medieval rape. The Canterbury tales may be seen as small stories told to one another to pass on time, but upon inspection they are tales

The Structure of Hell and the Justice in The Divine Inferno Dante wrote The Inferno with a clear sense of justice. He constructed and finished this section of The Divine Comedy in the thirteenth century. He described, in detail, the structure of Hell and the corresponding punishments for the committed sins: “Hell is the place of those who in life chose not to reflect (as Dante’s Vergil puts it, those who have lost “the good of the intellect”

In Canterbury Tales the Host constructs a contest for a free meal. For the contest you have to tell a tale that is morally sound. After all is done, the Host will pick a winner. After the Pardoner’s Tale, the Pardoner insults the Host by calling him “The most sinful of them all” ( ). Is pretty obvious he won't be winning the contest after insulting the judge of it all. Between a conventional religious biography, told by the Second Nun, and a short tale, told by the Physician, it becomes clear that the Host would pick the Second Nun’s Tale. Due to the fact the Physician tale shocked the Host and was not morally sound he would lose against the Second Nun.

In The Canterbury Tales, the poet-pilgrim stories written by Geoffrey Chaucer, tells a touching commentary of religious and political tales. We believe that Chaucer is the narrator of every character’s tale while traveling on the journey to the shrine of Saint Thomas a Becket. The characters on this journey were of various lifestyles. Their reasons for their pilgrimage and their expectations vary as each tale is told. Two characters that can relate and then be the opposite of each other were the Parson and the Pardoner.

“The Canterbury Tales” offers a wide selection of tales told by various types of people. “The Canterbury Tales” was written in 1392 and this novel was written by Geoffrey Chaucer and he wrote this novel in Middle English. The people in “The Canterbury Tales” range from different sections of the social class and all meet together at an inn known as the Tabard inn. One of the tales within this novel is the Pardoners tale which is told by the pardoner who throughout this journey remains at the back of the group. The Pardoner is noted to not be a reliable person as in the prologue of “The Canterbury Tales” the narrator mentions that he offers indulgences and also takes money donated to the church.

The sinners in the story are placed in certain rings of Hell depending on the sins they committed. The worse their sin was, the deeper they were placed. They also receive punishments befitting their sins. For example, those that were dishonest were infected with diseases, similarly to how they contaminated others with their lies.

Beginning in Circle One of Hell, Dante the Pilgrim’s actions allow for his quick alteration as a character to be very clear at the conclusion of the epic poem. While in this circle, he often expresses high levels of emotion towards the sinners he meets, such as Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan. The poet determined each human placed in this circle was there because

The second circle of Hell houses those who have been sinners of the flesh. These individuals gave into their lustful indulgences and as a result, they have found themselves in realm of punishment. For pursuing an individual whom they might have loved, for disregarding better judgment in favor of intimacy, they ultimately suffer for all eternity.