Chaucer provides multiple characters within the journey. He showed a lot of different individuals that are quite useful to the group. People, such as the nuns, who would help on the religious journey. The doctor who would help with anybody who is sick. People with handy man or somewhat related skills such as the carpenter, and a merchant. 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. He provides the negative truth to such a perfect combination of people. …show more content…
He might be helpful on the journey, but he might also be a con artist. He enjoys obtaining gold. He might treat the patient and give them a medicine that won't benefit them much. He would continue to provide his service as long as his patients have money to scam. Chaucer reveals the flaw within the group to show that nothing could be perfect. A complete package will always have holes. All the information provided about these characters are from the perspective of the author Chaucer. It is uncertain that the author actually took part within the journey since he is quite vague about his participation. Their fellow pilgrims provide little to no explanation about their comrades except for some vague mentions of other people. The reliability might be a little shaky since the majority of the description comes from one person. The audience might not know what is real and what is not since there is only one perspective for many
I agree with what Condren’s view on Chaucer. Chaucer shows in the story Chaucer talks about how dynamic life is and how different the people are. Life is a crazy thing but Chaucer makes it really different. He makes everything “fascinating” with everything he talks about has to have a story behind it and the people have stories behind them. He makes the people “fascinating” he talks about how they have rashes and have nasty eyebrows and the way they dress. Nothing is boring with them.
Why do you think Chaucer included Justinus and Placebo? What does the latter’s debate contribute to the overall Tale? A number of factors come together to distance the reader from the characters in the tale, not least the complicated and ambiguous series of lenses through which they are viewed. They are all types or allegories to lesser or greater degrees.
Based on the Canterbury tales, Chaucer's point of view of the Church was that he thinks highly of the priests who pastor their congregations because they follow the commandments of Jesus Christ. The Summoner, the Pardoner, the Monk and the Prioress are full-time servants of the Church, but they tend to be selfish and care more for themselves than for God's work. The students Nicholas and Absalom are interested in promiscuous behaviors more than the Church. Nick' a misled God-fearing man is similar to the tale of Noah's Ark. He is swindled to cheat on his wife, and Abby is also lustful of his wife. The Church doctrine really doesn't help, by taking advantage of the men's situation for their own
In the prologue Chaucer talks about many of the characters. He often tells stories and describes how they act and how they are. From being members in the church to having a good and bad reputation in the town, all the characters are unique in their own way. Chaucer describes the summoner, pardoner, and the friar by using indirect characterization in each of their stories.
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.
If you could go on a long trip with anyone you wanted in the world who would you choose? Would you choose your friends and family, or people you have never met before? When Chaucer picked people to go on a pilgrimage, or trip, he chose people very precisely because he wanted to make a point. Chaucer wanted to show the people in the streets how corrupt the church was and to expose how people really are. There are people in today’s society that are also corrupt and should be exposed to the world as well. Each character has a different story to tell, what kind of story would you like to hear and from who? Three modern day characters that would be interesting to listen to on a pilgrimage would be a
Chaucer suffered from financial hardship and he would have to keep working in public service to earn a living. He stayed in his work to help pay off his growing collection of
Anyone can agree that Chaucer is trying to tell the stories to capture life in all teeming glory. Most people think that Chaucer seems to be a good willed person and does not have any type of agenda he is working towards to reform something. Chaucer seems like a very smart person and a moral person who would not do such a thing as described above. Chaucer knows he is a smart and able bodied to recreate such stories so he does so with no reason other than him knowing he is able to do so.
In Chaucer’s famous novel: The Canterbury Tales, he describes many characters in a satirical way, while others he describes with complete admiration. The narrator (a constructed version of Chaucer himself) is staying at the Tabard Inn in London, when a large group of about twenty-nine people enter the inn, preparing to go on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. After the narrator talks to them, he agrees to join them on their pilgrimage. Although, before the narrator progresses any further in the tale, he describes the circumstances and the social rank of each pilgrim. There are two characters in these tales of the same social class, but Chaucer’s opinion on them vary greatly. These two characters are the beloved Parson, and the loathed Pardoner.
The characters introduced in the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales each represent a stereotype of a kind of person that Chaucer would have been familiar with in 14th Century England. Each character is unique, yet embodies many physical and behavioral traits that would have been common for someone in their profession. In preparing the reader for the tales, Chaucer first sets the mood by providing an overall idea of the type of character who is telling the tale, then allows that character to introduce themselves through a personal prologue and finally, the pilgrim tells their tale. Through providing the reader with insight about the physical and personal traits of
There were many different jobs during the Middle Ages. These jobs belonged to many different people with many different characteristics. In the series of tales The Canterbury Tales, author Geoffrey Chaucer writes about a group of people with different occupations during the Middle Ages. Who are going on a pilgrimage to the sacred town of Canterbury. Chaucer gives a detailed description of each character traveling to Canterbury. During this trek to Canterbury each of the passengers tells a different tale that Chaucer has chosen for them.
In the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer introduces a variety of characters with a multitude of personalities. From the despicable Summoner to the abrasive Miller, these characters are created with their own personalities and their own human failings. One common fault that characters share is hypocrisy. From pretending to be wealthy to cheating the poor out of money, hypocritical tendencies are abundant in the Canterbury Tales. Throughout the story, Chaucer ridicules the human criticizes the human failing of hypocrisy through the examples of the Pardoner, the Merchant, and the Friar.
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 Knight, for example, is chosen to narrate the first tale. He is in the highest position from a social standpoint and displays the most admiring virtues for a medieval Christian man-at-arms: bravery, prudence, and honor. In contrast, belonging to the clergy, the Pardoner serves the author’s purpose of criticizing the church, as the character is exceptionally good at faking relics and collecting profits in his own benefit. Chaucer portrays in this tale the disagreement with the excess wealth and the spread corruption in Church at that
Geoffrey Chaucer, in his novel Canterbury Tales, characterizes twenty four pilgrims on their journey to Canterbury. Ranging from knights to aristocrats to the trade class , the descriptive passages depict his opinions on each traveller. These characters in turn reflect Chaucer’s criticism and attitude towards medieval society, an example of social commentary. One character specifically used to reflect Chaucer's views on Scottish culture, the lower class, and corrupt businessmen is the Miler. In the general prologue, Chaucer reveals an overall negative opinion towards the Miller’s appearance and actions, reflecting his disappoint with aspects of the Middle Ages.