The Wannabes In The Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey Chaucer was an English author from the medieval era. In Chaucer's best-known work, The Canterbury Tales – a collection of twenty-four short stories as told by a group of pilgrims travelling to Canterbury – we gain access to the complex cultural landscape of his time. Chaucer's cast of characters, taken together, form a broad portrait of the social world he was a part of. This essay will argue that The Canterbury Tales' wide array of protagonists offers us an insight into the social divisions of medieval England, the high and low, old and young, learned and ignorant, rogue and righteous.

The Merchant is a high figure in society because he is a part of the wealthy class. Although he may seem unmoral because being part of the wealthy class, Chaucer’s perception is very different. Chaucer believed he was a “worthy man” because he “governed all [his] trade affairs well.” (Lines 282-283) Chaucer admires the way the Merchant handles his business, doing what it takes to get his job done. He borrows money and disguises himself well if and never he is in debt. Looking at the Merchant physically, we can see that he has nice things such as his “elegant boots [and] Flemish beaver hat.” (Lines 272-273) Again, it seems as though he cares immensely over material possession, but he does it to look more sophisticated in his business plans. Even though the Merchant is already classified a member of the higher class, Chaucer also puts him in the higher ranks because of his intelligence in trade and business. Chaucer’s principle

Chaucer describes his grandiose opinion of himself, the friar is pompous and crooked. He surmises that a man of his “status” should not be seen with the lowly and poor, which is ironic because those are exactly the people he is meant to help. Chaucer as discloses the lengths he is willing to go for even the smallest person gain saying. “His brethren did no poaching where he went./For though a widow mightn’t have a shoe,/So pleasant was his holy how-d’ye-do/He got his/farthing from her just the same/Before he left, and so his income came” (“General Prologue”, 256-262). The friar is willing to take from the people who need it most in the community, the widow’s economic class and living conditions are used further show the reprehensible behavior of the religious characters. Friars, like several other religious orders are supposed to take a vow of poverty in order the become closer to Christ. The Friar in Canterbury Tales does the exact opposite. Both his greed and unscrupulous behavior of another religious character further substantiate the idea that the religious characters are used to reflect the corruption in the church.

Chaucer has a somewhat clear opinion on the Guildsmen. In a way, he seems like he kind of looked

Chaucer began his works with descriptions of the pilgrims in “The General Prologue”, and he used satire in these to reach the common man of the time. The common man would not relate to a knight, to a pastor, or to a man of the law, but they would relate to a carpenter, a weaver, or a cook much more easily. Men of the church receive a great amount of satire, but “the rest . . . are treated with varying degrees of satire.” (Brewer) Some characters received a great amount of praise from Chaucer, making them seem almost unreal. One of these was the outstanding cook. He made great food for the entire troop, and nobody would ever complain, except for the fact that he had a disturbing ulcer on his “shin”. It was the only impediment to the character. “It seemed a shame, and caused me some chagrin,/To see he had an ulcer on his shin.” (GP lines 385-386) Common men would relate to the grossness of the character and they would have continued to read because of descriptions like this of other common, anonymous, figures.

It is so obvious what Chaucer is stirring up here that one would have to be completely oblivious to miss it. Chaucer is taking a figure who is held in high regards by everybody in the church and reduces him down to the level of scum. He portrays that mighty figures have many hidden reasons to be disrespected. These “great” people like the Friar are telling the people of their church to do one thing, but then they themselves go and do another that completely and utterly disprove what they just taught their people. These people that follow the leaders of the church are called yokels, and are Chaucer’s intended audience. Chaucer is stating that people like the Friar, who are in charge, take advantage of their ignorance and stupidity to feed their selfishness. This supports Chaucer’s argument for the hypocrisy in the Roman Catholic church.

Although the fact that “no morsel from her lips did she let fall” (Chaucer, 6) is a signal of politeness in the Prioress, Chaucer’s descriptions of the Prioress’s etiquette declare that delicacy is the embodiment of her activity in the Church. The Friar knows every tavern nearby and spends most of his time playing the rote and singing ballads; he also showers “fair wives” with gifts such as “pocket-knives” and “pins” (Chaucer, 10). He is the “finest beggar in the batch” (Chaucer, 9), and can coax a “widow [who] hadn’t a shoe” (Chaucer, 10) to give him money. In opposition to the Church’s belief in not possessing material goods, the Prioress dresses in a neat cloak, with coral around her arms, and a gold brooch about her neck (Chaucer, 7).

There are people who are able to provide food such as the cook and the Franklin. There are also people who can potentially fend off the threats on the journey like the skipper, the knight, the squire, and the yeoman to name a few. There are many individuals of use. However, Chaucer provides flaws within these characters. He provides their true identities to reveal that these people are quite sinful.

   Somehow, Chaucer is mocking the behaviours of the characters in this story, he does not condone their actions, in fact, he punishes them for behaving in such a fashion. One can wonder if Chaucer is expressing the idea of a majority of people from his time, or if his voice was singled out among his countrymen.

In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses the obscene and the grotesque to illustrate to the readers the bawdy stories of the pilgrims on the journey and highlight their class differences. Although the members of the lower class use elements of the vulgar and grotesque, the erasure of some of the more obscene scenes by the storytellers indicates Chaucer’s humor to the audience as it is a rhetorical device. In “The Merchant’s Tale,” Chaucer gives the merchant, whose position is caught between the higher classes and the lower classes, the power to perform paralipsis to cheekily clue the audience in to the more vulgar moments of the story as well as depicting monstrous imagery.

The Knight brings his son, a Squire, along with him on the pilgrimage: “[the Squire] loved so hotly that till dawn grew pale / He slept as little as a nightingale. / Courteous he was, lowly and serviceable, / And carved to serve his father at the table” (The General Prologue, Chaucer 99-102). Simply because his father is a knight, the Squire is in the second estate and has everything handed to him.

It is clear that Geoffrey Chaucer was acutely aware of the strict classist system in which he lived; indeed the very subject matter of his Canterbury Tales (CT) is a commentary on this system: its shortcomings and its benefits regarding English society. In fact, Chaucer is particularly adept at portraying each of his pilgrims as an example of various strata within 14th century English society. And upon first reading the CT, one might mistake Chaucer's acute social awareness and insightful characterizations as accurate portrayals of British society in the late 1300s and early 1400s. Further, one might mistake his analysis, criticism, and his sardonic condemnation of many elements of British culture for genuine attempts to alter the

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 General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer describes the men and women of the Church in extreme forms; most of these holy pilgrims, such as the Monk, the Friar, and Pardoner, are caricatures of objectionable parts of Catholic society.  At a time when the power-hungry Catholic Church used the misery of peasants in order to obtain wealth, it is no wonder that one of the greatest writers of the Middle Ages used his works to comment on the religious politics of the day.

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