Use Of Satire In Canterbury Tales

Satire. Satire is a biting literary tool, one that Geoffery Chaucer used liberally when he wrote his Canterbury Tales. Webster's New World Dictionary says that satire is "the use of ridicule, sarcasm, etc. to attack vices, follies, etc." Using that definition, I think that all of the pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales are satirized to some extent; some of the satirizations are more subtle than others. The Knight is one of the pilgrims that is more subtly satirized.

Geoffrey Chaucer was a master at creating highly individualized characters who are often comic and realistic at the same time and always have good traits as well as bad ones. The aim of this essay is to demonstrate this ability on the example of the Friar from The Canterbury Tales who is one of the most particular people in the book, and to analyse what means are used to create such a character.

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 is known as the father of English poetry. He was a shrewd storyteller and could project a story to an audience with eloquence. In the fourteenth century, Geoffrey Chaucer published The Canterbury Tales. In these tales he tells the stories of a group of people going on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. While on this pilgrimage, all the travelers have to tell stories, and we begin to see insights on their lives, jobs, and the scandals within these. Chaucer uses satire (the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices) when writing these stories. Chaucer’s use of satire is present in his critique of the Catholic Church, the patriarchy, as well as class and nobility.

By doing this, one could see how the social structure was in the fourteenth century in medieval days. While Chaucer wrote these tales, it is believed that he targeted the church more because of the immoral and unethical conduct going on. Chaucer was saying the leaders in the church of his day are not living up to the standard that they are required to uphold. Many of these leaders pursued their own aspirations instead of fulfilling their call in the ministry. As leaders of the church, these members must take an oath of poverty, obedience, and chastity (married to God); however, these leaders did not implement these rules to their daily

Through allegory and satire, The Canterbury Tales subtly satirizes human nature. Geoffrey Chaucer takes concepts common during the time of the narrative’s penning and shows his readers different viewpoints of such ideas. His self-insert, benevolent as he may appear to be, describes present company in such a way that he hints that they may be more than meets the eye. Evident in these descriptions as well as in their tales, the characters are deceptive in their outward manner. Despite being supposedly devout the Christian Church, most of the characters abuse conventional notions to conceal their inner sins.

Satire (The Analysis of Chaucer’s Use of Satire to Reach His Intended Audience) The freedom of speech was not fully recognized until the colonist wanted to be separate from Britain and their church; however Chaucer was the one that introduced them to speaking out. “The Canterbury Tales is a series of stories told by an interacting group of characters in the course of a journey which is seen, in accordance with a common medieval conception, as an image of human life in time. ”(Traversi, Derek A) Chaucer wrote the tale using characters as his voice claiming that the people in the story said what he had actually written himself.

In The Canterbury tales, Chaucer uses The Wife of Bath as a representation of what it was like for Women in the Middle Ages to be striped of equality and bow to the otherwise male dominated society. For the representation of women Chaucer uses the Tales of “The Scholar”, “The Second Nun “The Reeve’s”, and “The Franklin” and many others in a very dry, pretentious manner to steer readers into the view of how a women of the Middle Ages should be as a so called “virtuous” wife or woman. The concept of marriage plays a major part in manifesting the idea of the issues of inferiority of women. The perception rendered as women having to be obedient and inferior figure to their husbands or male counter parts. Chaucer

Use of Satire in Canterbury Tales, Pride and Prejudice and The Rape of the Lock

In Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, The Wife of Bath is a strong woman who loudly states her opinions about the antifeminist sentiments popular at the time. Chaucer, however, frequently discredits her arguments by making them unfounded and generally compromising her character. This brings into question Chaucer's political intent with the Wife of Bath. Is he supportive of her views, or is he making a mockery of woman who challenge the patriarchal society and its restriction and mistrust of women? The Wife's comedic character, frequent misquoting of authorities, marital infidelity, and her (as well as Chaucer's) own antifeminist sentiments weaken the argument that Chaucer supported

The way that Chaucer pin points the hypocracy of the church is in a crude way, he uses the pardoner to get this point across. A pardonder is practically a preacher and the way that this so called pardoner is acting and sounding is not very holy like and takes everyone aback for a while. He tells them that all he’s in it for is the money and that he could basically care less about the actual things that he is supposed to be preaching / practing about. He also calls “normal” people that attend church on a regualr basis, yokels, back then that was pretty offensive. When they find out about the pardoner and the way that he’s been acting they don’t really like it but they don’t really know what they could do about it.

“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit but the highest form of intelligence” (Gino). Admit it; we all have that one friend that is always sarcastic. There are always saying things that may seem nice at first, but when you think about it what they just said could have been a complete insult. This special trait that is used by people is called satire. Satire is defined as the use of wit, especially irony, sarcasm, and ridicule, to criticize faults. There is one person in our history that is the father of all satire, his name is Chaucer. Chaucer wrote in the medieval times and would talk about when women's rights and people of the church that were very hypocritical. Chaucer uses satire to reach his intended audience in his writings by coming across at first as nice but actually is being very sarcastic and actually insulting people right in front of them. Chaucer uses satire in, Chaucer’s Tales of Canterbury.

In the medieval times, the Catholic Church was the most powerful thing. Kings and other powerful leaders would gain their power from their alliances with the Church. Since the Church was the most powerful and influential thing, many people went on crusades to drive out the Muslim “infidels” from their Holy Land. No one really won the crusades since many died from both sides. The feudal system was a big part of the medieval times. The king would give large pieces of land to their noblemen and have serfs work in the fields. The feudal system started to change and deteriorate when the heavy plow and crop rotation were made. Fewer serfs had to work at one time so they left for other jobs. The population continued to rise and more and more people went to the city and it inspired the next era, the “Renaissance.” Chaucer depicts humor in the Canterbury Tales by showing the reality of the nature of the characters, not how they are portrayed in society.

Today, when one reads English literature from the fourteenth century, the thought of an outdated and peculiar form of dialect comes to mind. While it is not appealing to the eyes, further examinations allow one to see how this type of lingo is the first step towards a modern vernacular. Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of The Canterbury Tales and Trolius and Criseyed, is considered the founder of this new dialect due to the foreign influences he acquired over his life. While this modernized writing style allows him to be one of the most notable authors of all time, Chaucer also tends to be recognized for his historical accuracy and social perspective. These characteristics are evident in The Canterbury Tales because they provide great insight into the fourteenth century’s reflections of social adaptations, controversies within the church, and equality amongst genders.

Chaucer’s first attack on church hypocrisy begins with the multitude of corrupt religious figures that he introduces in the general prologue. The best fitting example of Chaucer’s satirical attack is the