The Role Of Greed In Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

Throughout history greed has corrupted and destroyed many people plunging them farther into the need for more; in contemporary times this has only strengthened. In 1387, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote “The Canterbury Tales” within this consist of “The Pardoners Tale”. This tale consists of a greedy pardoner preaching sermons only to benefit himself. An English poet, William Blake believes that “The characters of Chaucer’s Pilgrims are the characters which compose all ages and nations…” As Blake states Chaucer’s pilgrims, can be considered a universal theme throughout all ages. The Pardoners greed is universal because of his sermons, his use of relics, and can be related to modern day Ponzi schemes.

During the late middle ages, the power of the church was nearly unlimited; despite its holy mission the church was plagued by corruption and misconduct. Member’s of the clergy sold indulgences, bribed officials, and abandoned their vows. The religious characters in the Canterbury Tales are used to demonstrate the author's views of the Church. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses The Friar and the Nun in the “General Prologue” and The Pardoner in the “Pardoner’s Tale” to show the systemic corruption that is present in the church by exhibiting their immoral behavior. The Friar take from the destitute, the nun is overly concerned with the refined and the pardoner's only interested in the monetary gain.

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.

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

In The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, both characters, the Pardoner and the Doctor, embark on a pilgrimage. While the Pardoner is from the First Estate and the Doctor is from the Third Estate, both are subject to greed. First, in his “Prologue”, the arrogant Pardoner explains how he “[makes his] living out of—avarice” (243). He means “to have money, wool and cheese and wheat…given [to him] by the poorest lad[s]/, or poorest village [widows, or]/ … starving children… /and never do an honest job of work” (244). Taking money from every willing soul with no regard to their finances, the Pardoner exchanges false forgiveness of sins.

Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: The General Prologue portrays the newly formed social division in Medieval England by having people from the noble, gentry, church, and working social groups come together on a journey to the Canterbury Chapel. A modern-day American version of this poem would also include a diverse group of people. The nobility in The Canterbury Tales is represented by the knight, which Chaucer describes as loving, “trouthe and honour, freedom and curteisye” (46). Since the knight is a worthy defender and protector of the people, the modern-day equivalent would be our country’s police officers and military. For higher-ranking nobility, American

In the General Prologue of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the Host instructs the pilgrims to tell ‘“Tales of best sentence and moost solaas’” (GP 798). In other words, in order to win the contest, the pilgrims must tell stories which both impart serious meaning/wisdom (“sentence”) as well as entertainment (“solaas”). While the pilgrims all achieve these two goals to varying degrees, The Pardoner’s Tale seems at first to succeed very well in providing both moral teaching and entertainment. However, while his tale effortlessly satisfies the “solaas” requirement, the Pardoner cannot truly provide the “sentence” he aims for, as his lesson degrades into hypocrisy and he lacks the respect from the other pilgrims necessary to afford his tale the impact he intends.

The seven deadly sins are a force to be reckoned with. As the name of the sins exclaim each one will lead to your inevitable doom. In the canterbury tales Chaucer uses the seven deadly sins in order to explain the morals of the tales. In the pardoner's tale Chaucer mainly uses the sin of greed to get his message across to the reader.

Despite the fact that the clergy is supposedly to be the holiest of all other factions of the social class system during the Middle Ages period, every one of the clergy members attending this pilgrimage are corrupted in some way except one. In the Canterbury Tales, the first tale told is by a pardoner, who at that time would sell pardons to sinners, give (some of if not none of) the money collected to the church, and keep the remaining money for himself. The pardoner Chaucer makes attendance with is as corrupt as any other pardoner, keeping much of the money he collects for himself and lavishing in it quite publicly. Before the pardoner tells his tale, he speaks about himself and his tale beforehand in his own short prologue. In his prologue he confesses to bilking many people out of money for his own personal gain and proclaims that he will never do any honest day of work.

With the rise of Christianity in the west, institutions of worship and knowledge quickly became centers of communities. The leaders of these churches and monasteries, under the claim of being infallible as well as being able to speak with God directly, rapidly gained power in the social hierarchy. With entire kingdoms and communities situated on a single belief, it wouldn’t take long for men to rise to power within the churches and abuse such power. One such practice that became heavily abused within the Christian institutions was the practice of giving out indulgences. Indulgences to the church were paid usually in the form of money. By paying the church, you would be paying the high officials of the church to forgive all your sins. The most

Greed is a horrible trait to have, greed effect a person as a whole, a relationship, and how your outlook on life is. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Pardoners Tale, three friends get a chance to acquire so gold they were told is under a tree. This gold, they will soon find out, is costly to them.

The Canterbury Tales and “Federigo’s Falcon” were written in the medieval era during the 1300s. The Canterbury Tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer were told on the pilgrimage to Canterbury, where two stories were told on the way there and two on the way back. Similar to The Canterbury Tales, Federigo’s Falcon written by Giovanni Boccaccio were told on a ten day trip in Florence, Italy. The poem “ The Pardoner’s Tale” and the short story “Federigo’s Falcon” shows the outcome of how people respond to greed by making sacrifices and being rewarded or punished from those sacrifices in different ways.

Throughout centuries human beings have evolved, but various traits of human nature remain the same. An epic poem named “The Canterbury Tales” written by Geoffrey Chaucer provides examples that demonstrate traits of human nature that are still relevant in our world today even if this piece of literature was written hundreds of years ago.The Canterbury Tales is framed by having multiple people from different social lives and statuses share stories which demonstrates how these pilgrims think and act, in other words their human nature, on their way to the martyr St. Thomas in a pilgrimage. These characters portray different traits of human nature such as having religious aspirations, falling in love, and thinking in an evil way in their stories which are all still lively relevant in today's society.

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, the prioress’s behavior can be interpreted as being part of the change occurring within religious institutions, which were changing to allow for freedom of thought and individual choice, as the nun does when she takes the liberty of customizing her fine garb by wearing it with beads and a gold brooch. The nun is one of the first characters to be given a name and as such is identified as being an individual, and not just seen as being a nun. The nun’s deviation from expected behavior and norms can thus be seen as a positive trait which Chaucer praises as women became more independent and redefined their own roles in society. Excessive understatement, negative imagery, and refined diction, however

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales, a collection of short tales in the 14th century. The compilation of stories is told by pilgrims on the journey within the narrative as part of a game proposed by the host. Each individual must tell two stories of their journey. My favorite pilgrim was the Franklin. The Franklin was a gentry landowner, member of the nobility, who had extensive holdings. He belonged to the middle-class and was a man of leisure. Chaucer described him as “White as a daisy-petal was his beard. A sanguine man, high-colored and benign” (line 342-343). The Franklin sported a white beard and carried a dagger and a white silk purse. He had a cheerful personality and was confident. His only reason to be on this pilgrimage was to enjoy himself. The Franklin was traveling with the Man of Law. According to Chaucer he “He loved a morning sop of cake in wine. He lived for pleasure and had always done” ( line 344). I think that Chaucer had a good opinion of the Franklin. The way that Chaucer describes the Franklin makes the reader think that Chaucer likes him. He says that The Franklin is calm, strong and an overall a cheerful guy. Chaucer also proves that he thinks highly of the Franklin by saying, "He was a model among landed gentry" (line 369-370). He lives to please others and has a house full of food. The Franklin, according to Chaucer, had an overall great sense of hospitality. The Franklin’s deadly sin was gluttony. He liked to overindulge himself