Violence In The Pardoner, The Knight, And The Wife Of Bath

Greed greed is in the air, greed greed is everywhere. Geoffrey Chaucer’s story The Canterbury Tales begins with a prologue explaining the main points of the stories that follow the prologue. The two Stories “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Wife of bath’s Tale” are two of the stories in The Canterbury Tales. The two stories have a main focus of explaining morals in a hiddin way. Both stories express more than one moral and it gives the reader a sense of what chaucer is trying to express. “The Pardoners’s Tale” Is a better story because of its relatible moral that focuses on greed, and its multiple uses of figurative language and irony.

To eat or not to eat. In this battle of concocted tales, this is where it all boils down to. Both the Pardoner and the Wife of Bath have surely produced fine stories, each with their own charm; however, it will not be a battle without a clear winner—only one can enjoy a free meal. Although the “Wife of Bath’s Tale” tapped into a strong topic—gender equality—it only stated that women want to be equal to men as well, but never delved in deeper. The story even disregards the problem at hand: a knight who raped a girl and got away scot-free, even finding himself a beautiful and loyal wife. If the story went differently, the “Wife of Bath’s Tale” has all the components of a great story. Meanwhile, the “Pardoner’s Tale”, although short, successfully showed the corruptness that humans have, as well as the consequences if ever one finds themselves stuck in greed’s vice grip. Therefore, the Pardoner’s tale is better than the “Wife of Bath’s Tale” because it delves into the darkness of humanity, the consequences when one has dug themselves too deep and shows how, despite people knowing the result of their misconduct, will still choose to sink further into darkness.

Justice means fairness and justness. In the tale The Wife of Bath's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer, justice is not served. The tale takes place in King Arthur's days. One of the kings knights takes advantage of his power and strength. He forced onto a girl near the stream. Despite the girl’s pleads to stop, the knight continued. During the time that the story takes place due to this crime “the knight was to be dead By course of law…” (pg.126). Although the crime was punishable with the death penalty the queen granted his life. The victim of the incident not only was physically hurt but, mentally as well. She did not get a say on what would happen with the knight’s punishment. However in order to be granted his life, the knight was to find the answer

During the Middle Ages, The Canterbury Tales was the first major English literary work of Geoffrey Chaucer. One of Chaucer’s classic tales, “The Pardoner’s Tale,” establishes a concrete image of the Pardoner’s greed. Chaucer uses “The Pardoner’s Tale” to expose that “greed is the root of all evil” through verbal, situational and dramatic irony.

In terms of literary quality, Chaucer went great lengths to give all elements a bit of attention. The work is primarily about a knight who is pardoned from a rape on the condition that he acquires the answer to one of life’s

The summoner was one of the worst people in the town. He messed with children, was an alcoholic and blackmailed people. “He loved drinking strong till he was hazy.” This was Chaucers way of explaining how bad of an alcoholic the summoner was. This was one of his biggest problems and he showed it through the way he

Even though the narrator does not say much about the Knights physical appearance, we can assume that the Knight and the Wife of Bath were not identical. The Wife of Bath was a bold face woman with a red hue complexion, "Boold was hire face, and fair, and reed of hewe"(line 458). She was also gapped tooth, "Gat-tothed was she, smoothly for to seye"(line 468) with large hips, "A foot-mantel aboute hir hipes large", (line472).

The story the Wife of Bath tells is of a knight who rapes a young lady and subsequently is condemned to death by King Arthur. Chaucer then satirizes the male patriarchy by having the queen take ability to pass judgement on the knight, not King Arthur. This exhibits the power of women over men. This act foreshadows the course of events, manifesting the knight as merely a puppet on a string. The queen gives the knight the choice between a year long quest or to be put to death. The quest the knight must complete is to find what women most desire by the end of the year or he will put to death, “I’ll grant you life if you can tell to me / What thing it is that women most desire. / Be wise, and keep you neck from iron dire!” (Chaucer 910-912). With one of the

Throughout the story, The pardoner's Tale, Chaucer writes of topics often still written about today. He mentions greed, violence, and death. The characters he creates are especially memorable and can be compared to characters in modern literature which makes it easier to understand. Chaucer writes about a group of quarreling rioters who’s lack of intelligence helps add some comedy to the story. He also adds in a wise, yet “very poor old man”(174) who indirectly hints at what would help them find “a privy thief… called Death”(173) that they seek. Chaucer's memorable rhetoric is capped off when the men find greed, in the form of a large sum of gold, which causes them to conspire and kill each other. In the end they found the Death they were looking for. This clever storytelling makes the plot particularly clear and straightforward compared to The Wife of Bath’s drawn out vagueness. Chaucer's easily relatable characters and cleaver but understandable plot make The Pardoner's Tale much more

How can a man exact vengeance on God if there is nothing a mortal can do to hurt Him? The Pardoner was born sterile, which resulted in abnormal physical development. He blames God for his deformities and attempts to attack God by attacking the link between God and mankind – the Church.

There is no question that contradictory values make up a major component of The Canterbury Tales. Fate vs. Fortuna, knowledge vs. experience and love vs. hate all embody Chaucer's famous work. These contrasting themes are an integral part of the complexity and sophistication of the book, as they provide for an ironic dichotomy to the creative plot development and undermine the superficial assumptions that might be made. The combination of completely contradictory motifs leads to the unusual stories and outcomes that come to play out in the tales. And these outcomes draw focus on the larger universal issues that in many cases transcend the boundaries of vernacular periods to all of

In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer tells “The Knight’s Tale”, a story of the two knights Palamon and Arcite who fall deeply in love with Princess Emily, a member of Theseus’ kingdom. Even though both knights are imprisoned within a tower, each finds a way to escape jail and try to win Emily. Ultimately, this leads to a duel between the two knights for which the prize is the hand of Emily. Chaucer uses the knights to reflect the very male-oriented time period through the strong chivalry and courtly love displayed towards Emily, when in reality, he was trying to expose the flaws of the chivalric code, which led to the deadly feud between two fellow knights. Essentially, Chaucer is holding up a magnifying glass to what people of the

Chaucer’s most brutal attack was on the high ranking class and nobility, his use of satire allowed for him to make accusations of their lack of accountability for their actions. This concept was outlined in the Wife of Bath’s Tale, where a young knight physically assaulted a maiden the instance was brought to a court of the king and the knight was then sentenced to execution. The queen, however, chose to spare the knight’s life if he was able to find what women desired most within one year. He returned to the court a year later and revealed that women wanted freedom more than anything, and in return he was forced to marry an old lady that revealed the secret to him. This was what taught him the ultimate lesson. The old lady made a deal with the knight, he could have her old and ugly, but loyal or he could have a young and beautiful wife that he could not trust; when presented with the choice the knight chose to let the woman decide. “The knight thought long, and with a piteous groan at last he said, with the care in life, “My lady and my love, my dearest wife, I leave the matter to your wise decision. You make the choice yourself, for the provision of what may be agreeable and right in honor to us both, I don't care which; whatever pleases you suffices me.” (lines 374-381) The knight has learned that he cannot control his wife and have her love him, as a result of this revelation the lady changes herself into a loyal and beautiful wife. This lesson

The manifestation of Chaucer’s perceptions lie in the actual tale as well as the prologue of The Wife of Bath when power is no more than momentarily relinquished to a man non-consensually through rape. Power is hastily regained by women when the rapist’s fate is put

The Medieval Period in history brought along scores of fables about everything from knights engaging in courtly love to corruption in the Catholic Church. The Canterbury Tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer expertly encapsulates many of the great motifs of the era. The Tales are a series of stories and descriptions of characters of all social classes that were composed in the late 1300’s. Chaucer utilizes a multitude of literary techniques to convey his personal views of people, and ultimately, what they represent in society. The author uses such devices when depicting two morally contrasting characters, the Parson and the Summoner, that are documented in the Prologue.