Religious Conflicts In 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.

In Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales he reveals an underlying flaw in society. Chaucer portrays the Pardoner as hypocritical in order to get his message across to readers. The Pardoner is shown to be the exact definition of a hypocrite by preaching to others to lead a spiritual life, while not living by those preaching's himself. In Canterbury Tales, Chaucer reveals hypocritical qualities in the Pardoner through vivid characterization, tone, and morality.

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, written and narrated by Geoffrey Chaucer, explores manipulation and dishonesty in the Catholic Church. The Nun in “The General Prologue” exemplifies improper qualities to which a Prioress should have. Along with the Nun, The Friar in “The General Prologue” uses false information to gain customer. In “The Pardoner’s Tale,” the Pardoner uses greedy tactics to wield other pilgrims into buying his relics.In Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses the Nun and the Friar in “The General Prologue” and the Pardoner in “The Pardoner’s Tale” to show the hypocrisy in the Church.

Chaucer lived in a time dictated by religion and religious ideas in which he uses The Canterbury Tales to show some of his views. Religion played a significant role in fourteenth-century England and also in Chaucer’s writing. His ideas of the Church are first seen in “The Prologue,” and he uses seven religious persons to show the influence of the religion in his writing. Although many of his characters appear to portray part of the corruption in the Church, he does give a small example in which one can conclude that he is speaking in praise.

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 Knight, for example, is chosen to narrate the first tale. He is in the highest position from a social standpoint and displays the most admiring virtues for a medieval Christian man-at-arms: bravery, prudence, and honor. In contrast, belonging to the clergy, the Pardoner serves the author’s purpose of criticizing the church, as the character is exceptionally good at faking relics and collecting profits in his own benefit. Chaucer portrays in this tale the disagreement with the excess wealth and the spread corruption in Church at that

This shows a double standard in the Prioress’s character. Although she is the most compassionate and loving woman, she is very anti-Semitic. She wants mercy for the little boy and anyone grieving for him, yet she supports the action of the Jews being hastily judged and hanged. Ames says, “Chaucer has portrayed the combination with such uncanny accurately that the Prioress seems a prototype of the pious lady who would not hurt a mouse but who would not stop a lynching of those outsiders she fears and hates.” (200)

The Canterbury Tales is a story that incorporates a multitude of stories told by a multitude of characters. Written by Geoffrey Chaucer, he devises a novel in which each character has to narrate a total of four stories as part of a competition; on their way to visit Saint Thomas Becket, the characters would tell two stories going and two stories returning from the journey. The perspective changes through each story, and each story is introduced by a general, opening, third person prologue. Though many of the characters got to share some ideas, Chaucer unfortunately passed away before his story’s entirety. As a result, a winner was never officially clarified. Needless to say, it is evident that the clear winner would be the Miller’s Tale.

       The characters introduced in the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales each represent a stereotype of a kind of person that Chaucer would have been familiar with in 14th Century England. Each character is unique, yet embodies many physical and behavioral traits that would have been common for someone in their profession. In preparing the reader for the tales, Chaucer first sets the mood by providing an overall idea of the type of character who is telling the tale, then allows that character to introduce themselves through a personal prologue and finally, the pilgrim tells their tale. Through providing the reader with insight about the physical and personal traits of

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

In the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer gives a detailed description of what life was like in Medieval times . In the “Prologue”, the reader comes to better understand the people of the time period through the characters words and actions. Chaucer uses a variety of groups of society to give the reader a deeper insight into the fourteenth century Pilgrims customs and values. Through the Court, Common people and the Church, Gregory Chaucer gives a detailed description of ordinary life in the medieval times.

The Canterbury Tales, a collection of tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, was written in Middle English at the end of the 14th century (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2011). It is considered to be the best work of literature in English in the Middle Ages (Johnston, 1998). Chaucer uses literary devices as no one had ever done. In addition, he chose to use English instead of Latin. This masterpiece is structured in a similar way as Bocaccio's Decameron. The tales are organized within a frame narrative (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2011) explained in the General Prologue by the narrator: a group of pilgrims that are going to visit St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury's Cathedral. These pilgrims are from different estates of the medieval society: nobility, the

The Canterbury Tales has many themes; one is the increasing significance of the merchant class in Chaucer’s lifetime is evident in his selection of characters. It was essential to the economy that groups function well together. Another is even though there is a social order to the travelers, they act informally and are on level footing as storytellers. One that may shock some people is the changing role of the Church that is also addressed in Chaucer's work. The Black Death caused people to lose faith in God and the Church. Some of the most corrupt pilgrims are men of God. Though the world was suffering, the Church was building monuments to saints, and many questioned the use of resources for such structures and the Church's preaching against greed. The Prioress, the Monk, and the Friar all seem devoted to the aristocratic rather than religious life. Romance, too, is a recurring theme within The Canterbury Tales. Present in the Prioress's rosary charm, the tales of knights rescuing maidens, and the Squire's devotion to courtly love. The Wife of Bath and the Miller transform their tales or ridicule traditional romantic