Irony In The Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales in a collection of 24 stories while on a pilgrimage to visit the relics of Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. The purpose behind this pilgrimage is for the pilgrims to visit the shrine to seek forgiveness for their sins. Due to the long trip, the host made a deal with everyone to tell two stories on the way and back from Canterbury and whoever tells the best one receives a paid for meal. Each character telling their stories gives away bits of information and a visual idea of who they really are. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses detail, point of view, and descriptive language to portray the Pardoner and Summoner to be worse than the Skipper.

The Pardoner has many other examples of irony just waiting to show up to the readers.
    The Pardoner's next example of irony is situational irony. The reader is originally told a story about three men searching for a man named death. Readers seem to forget all about the part of the story when these young men find the gold. At this point the story took a sure twist up until all of the young men are dead. When this happens Chaucer goes back “Thus these two murderers received their due,/So did the the treacherous young poisoner too” (294-5).   The “due” in this case is death. When this occurs the reader will most likely remember that death was what these young men were searching from the beginning for, the reader would assume that the quest to find this assassin would be a wild goose chase, the young men did indeed find what they where looking for. The Pardoner has one more form of irony in store for his listeners.
    The final example of irony from the Pardoner is dramatic irony. To let his audience know that these three young men are doomed to death before they have the slightest idea Chaucer uses foreshadowing. The best example of foreshadowing is the old man that they meet on the road to find Death. The old man give several clues to his identity such as “One who would change his youth to have my age/And so my age is mine and must be still” (121-2). The reader easily mistakes the old man as looking for an exchange of youth and old age when in

This is simply an easy way for the Pardoner to trick others into feeding his infinite appetite for greed (Boenig 4). Another example of this shows that the Pardoner "ha[s] a cross of metal set with stones/ And, in a glass, a rubble of pigs' bones." (Chaucer 695-66). These were more so-called "relics" which the Pardoner defrauds others into obtaining. Virtues of honesty and godliness are never displayed in the Pardoner's persona. The absence of such qualities makes Chaucer's ambition of showing hypocrisy amongst society easily attainable.

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.

When the three friends set out to avenge their friend they find gold, and it blinds them. It makes them forget about their friend and the avenging they only care for the wealth and power this gold can give them. Not only does the gold set them off track, it causes their death, in fact, greed is what causes their death. Although the gold was a lot and it was plenty enough for each when they divide it, their greed forced them to want more. Their desire for wealth forced to want to kill each other. In the end they all end up dead, victims of their greed. Chaucer shows the reader that mans greed and desire for power and wealth will have disastrous consequences, in this case death. The irony in the pardoners tale is that the men set out to find Death and they indeed find it, but have they found Death, the person. Although he is of unclear identity, the old man can be interpreted as Death, or his form on earth. A lot of mystery and unanswered questions concern the old man, however, from the text the reader can hint that he is some form of Death. The old man is the one who directed the men right to the gold and most likely knew what the men’s fait was. In general, the message Chaucer is trying to convey through his story is that greed is a sin, and it causes horrible

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.

The Canterbury Tales were written by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. This masterpiece is one of the greatest classics of English Literature, it was and continues to be still very popular. Many manuscripts survived and it was the first work to be printed by William Caxton. It is a story about pilgrims travelling together, who tell stories on their journey to Canterbury, to pay tribute to Saint Thomas Becket. As it is a collection of tales, it varies in genre (there is beast fables, romances, fabliaux, saints’ lives…), subject, mood, length (some tales are 80-page long whereas some are much shorter), form (in verse –several verse-form are also found- or in prose). For this

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 irony of the Pardoner is based on his hypocritical actions. The fact that he does not care about the souls of those he has tricked, says a lot about his character. Near the end of his tale, the friends begin to reveal their true personality. All three of them turn on each other trying to steal the treasure for themselves. All of the trust, which they had promised, was a lie and no loyalty remained. The supposed faithful “friends” display their true cruelty and expose their hypocrisy in relation to the Pardoner's character.

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

It tells in his tale that the Pardoner’s favorite thing to preach against is greed, but what people don’t know is that he is only the pardoner because he likes the money; he is greedy. Chaucer uses this type of satire to help illustrate that the Pardoned is a hypocrite. “Out come the pence, and specially for myself, for my exclusive purpose is to win and not at all to castigate their sin.” When the pardoned says this he is basically saying that I’m only doing this job for the money, and that he could care less about the people he is supposed to help. That is how Chaucer uses satire for the Pardoner.

The Canterbury Tales, a masterpiece of English Literature, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, is a collection, with frequent dramatic links, of 24 tales told to pass the time during a spring pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket in Canterbury. The General Prologue introduces the pilgrims, 29 "sondry folk" gathered at the Tabard Inn in Southwark (outside of London). Chaucer decides to join them, taking some time to describe each pilgrim.

The Medieval period of The Canterbury Tales is held on April 11, 1387. The writing style of tales are literary skilled. “There is clear evidence in them that Chaucer was familiar with a considerable number of the great book of his time, and it is fairly well established that his writings show a steady increase in his literary skill” (Chaucer xxxvii). Chaucer is a writer of surprise. His stories not only come from plots of other writers but also from his lifetime. “There is of course no explaining where or how Chaucer acquired his ability as a great storyteller. However, the fact that he was a man of affairs as well as a man of books, a civil servant who dealt frequently with people from all walks of life, seem to have had great

The aim of any true satirical work is to poke fun at a certain aspect of society, while also inspiring reform to that very same aspect in one way or another. In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Chaucer satirizes the Medieval Church and those associated with the church. Medieval society was centered largely around the Church. Ideally, the people were expected to understand that earthly possessions were meaningless when compared to the prospect of closeness with God. Man was expected to work until he died, at which time he would receive eternal salvation. This eternal salvation was achieved by obeying God's commandments. This theory, however, was becoming progressively corrupted as hypocrisy began to pollute the Church, particularly at the higher

Irony is an element which is found all throughout the best and worst pieces of literature. This is an element of literature which gives the reader an understanding of the story. In Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales”, he uses three distinct forms of irony which add to the story. Irony is basically the expression of one’s meaning by using language to signify the opposite. In this story, Chaucer uses dramatic, situational and verbal irony all throughout his story. By incorporating these kinds of ironies, Chaucer is able to paint a picture through his story. This in turn adds to the overall theme of the story.