The Importance Of Social Class In The Canterbury Tales

Social class plays a major role in a society. A person’s social class affects his/her education, respectability, and ability to get a job. Most people in America’s society are born into their social class, but it is easier now to move up than it was in 16th century England. Although there are some slight differences in these two social classes, the social classes of 16th century England are shockingly similar to the social classes of modern day America.

In reality class always matters and it shapes our interests in life. We all come from different background and ethnicity. I believe that class is shaped mainly by income and occupation. However, many people think if a person is wealthy, therefore, he belongs in the upper class. But there are other factors that define class and it is more than just how much money you have. It can be the network of people that surrounds, traditions, and academic status that can also define class. Many of it has to do in which family you have been born and network that creates it. All of my family members have been born and raised in Russia; they completed universities, got jobs, and had enough income to support a family. “Each of us is born into a family with a particular class identity and class history—sometimes it is a mixed or hybrid identity—but almost always it is part of a network of other relationships—to other families in a community, to work and jobs, and to institutions” (Zandy 112).

Social class has been always been in our society since its establishment. Back then, white,

The concept of social class has been around for ages and is still a part of today’s society. Social class is not only based on the individual’s wealth but also on their social standing such as; monarchs, priests, nobles, merchants, and peasant class. The peasant class was practically ignored, which means that the higher classes would only pay attention to each other. This can be the case in society today, there are some people who feel that their career makes them higher than a janitor. Even though humans have been around for centuries, social class is still a big issue.

Since the beginning of civilization, unfortunately, there has always been some type of ranking when it came to social status. Usually, there was a small group of wealthy elites who ran everything, and then there was the large group of people who were not rich. One would think that the rich would take care of the poor, but often times the rich kept to themselves and let the poor suffer. This can be seen all over history from the time of the Egyptians to the feudal system of the middle ages, to even more current times.This holds true when diving into the 1800 and 1900’s. One would see that like there were very few social elites and a plethora of people who were not wealthy by a stretch. There were times when the rich would participate in activities that would make it seem like they were helping the poor when in actuality they were not doing the slightest. An example of this can be seen in Andrew Carnegie's “The Gospel of Wealth.” In “The Gospel of Wealth” Carnegie explains what one should do to help society and the poor, but what it is is a way for the wealthy to feel better about themselves.

Social class describes the different "layers" that exist in society. These "layers," or classes in society, are a division that civilization has been running on ever since the beginning of mankind. In most modern societies, our system of social class division is one of opportunity. We experience a good deal of social mobility, where people through generations or in their own lifetime can move up or down the social scale. By examining the many different perceptions of social class along with S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, it is illustrated that social class has an impact on people while they are growing up, and will usually deny them from rising above adversity.

With regards to my own experiences with social class, I recall times from my own childhood. I grew up in a college town full of highly educated people. Most of the children I grew up with came from very affluent families who lived in very lavish, costly homes. My parents did not have the educational background or financial means to provide the lavish life that most of my friends were living. As younger children, my mother always did a good job of providing for our needs. Other than the outward differences of the home I lived in (which was nice, but modest), or the cars we drove, I was unaware of the differences, those became more apparent as I grew older. Most of my friends took family vacations at least twice every year that involved flying

Social classes play a major role in society and shape the roles of the people. Since the Elizabethan period began, the social classes were well structured with many influences, such as prestige or wealth. Many citizens found ways to elevate their status and become more successful citizens in the public. The social class structure in the Elizabethan Era was thought to be strict and very well organized, yet still had many opportunities and flaws which lead to changes in citizens’ lives.

Although Chaucer's society was in the midst of dramatic transformation regarding traditional medieval hierarchy, the social paradigm in the late 1300s

Nobles, Priests, Peasants, and scholars few of many descriptions given to people living in the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages, was a time in European history when people were separated by jobs, religious beliefs, and money. During the Middle Ages a class system began to develop and out of that rose the middle class. Middle class is the social group between the upper and working classes, including professional and business workers and their families. In literature many writers have been able to depict economic and social changes through poems, novels, and short stories. Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem, The Canterbury Tales, depicts the rising middle class in the midst of the Middle Ages through the use of characters, their actions, and language.

The Canterbury Tales, the most famous and revolutionary work of Geoffrey Chaucer, is a collection of twenty-four tales presented in the form of a story-telling contest by pilgrims who are traveling from London to Canterbury. In my viewpoint, The Canterbury Tales can be understood as a representation of the English society at Chaucer's time as it documents several of the social tensions of life in the late Middle Age. The choice of setting the tales as part of a pilgrimage allowed the author to cover a wide range of social roles with varying hierarchical positions and occupations. Therefore, the tales depict a number of the evolving themes by that time in many segments of the society, such as the ones presented in The Wife of Bath tale: the

In The Canterbury Tales, there are five social classes of the medieval society. Royalty, nobility, clergy, merchants, skilled craftsmen, and peasants. The only possibility for them to go up or down in the classes was by their marriages. It was frowned upon and people often lost the respect of that. Chaucer can give his opinion on how the classes were divided and what was wrong with society at the time without being killed.

In the short story The Canterbury Tales the General Prologue, there are many characters that reflect the social classes of the medieval society. You can look at each characters personality and their reputation and you can find out what social class they are in. The author's purpose in this story is to show how social classes were organized and how to recognize them in the medieval times. At the beginning he starts off with the Knight. He is in the upper class.

The three estates are each divided into their specific class. There is the clergy ("those who pray"); the nobility ("those who fight"); and the commoner or peasantry ("those who work"). The paly, too, does not put them in order. It is aptly introduced by the Highest order, the Knight, but then followed by a member of the lowest order, the Miller, by which fact, Chaucer may be insinuating his disregard for order of class and status.

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.