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Chaucer as a moralist in Canterbury tales
Chaucer as a moralist in Canterbury tales
Chaucer as a moralist in Canterbury tales
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The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, is a book of tales that are filled with moral and life lessons. In “The Reeve’s Tale”, the miller, Simkin, often cheats many of his customers and has a pugnacious nature. When the maniciple becomes ill, two of his students, Alan and John, decide to help out by traveling to the miller. Because of his reputation, Alan and John ask the miller if they could watch him grain the corn so that they can prevent Simkin from cheating them. Skimkin realizes their plan and devises a new one to counteract theirs so he can steal the flour from them. He agrees to their condition but then releases their horses, foiling their plans and allowing the miller to cheat them. When the duo finally get their horses …show more content…
Alan and John sneak into Simkin’s wife and daughter’s room and becomes “at one” with them (Chaucer 4197). The justice brought upon the miller is to degrade the women who are closest to Simkin, essentially defiling what Simkin loves most, his property. When the miller finds out, he threatens them that they “shalt be dead” for what they have done (Chaucer 4270). Simkin does not initially realize that this is his punishment for continually cheating others and resorts to anger and violence instead or repentance. We are shown more of his destructive nature that becomes his demise. Additionally, for a moment we can see that perhaps Simkin has a shred of humanity until Chaucer mentions that the women “come of such lineage” (Chaucer 4273). By doing so, Chaucer destroys any kind of sympathy for Simkin and makes him the sole example of what becomes of deceit and lies. All in all, Chaucer conveys human corruption through Simkin and makes him the example of justice. Although all his tales describe similar morals, it is evident to say that those who lie and deceive will always be punished. In more ways than one, we find ourselves often disagreeing with this sentiment and harbor anger towards those who cheat because they always seem to be the most successful. Chaucer empathizes with that and shows the audience that although the miller continually cheats, he eventually gets punished by Alan and John thus showing that patience is a key role within
In “The Pardoner’s Tale,” Geoffrey Chaucer masterfully frames an informal homily. Through the use of verbal and situational irony, Chaucer is able to accentuate the moral characteristics of the Pardoner. The essence of the story is exemplified by the blatant discrepancy between the character of the storyteller and the message of his story. By analyzing this contrast, the reader can place himself in the mind of the Pardoner in order to account for his psychology.
Chaucer's Prologue is an introduction to the characters that he will soon be talking about in his short stories. It was written to combat the Italian Buchartio, and write his own version to achieve fame. The reason that the Italian version became so popular is because of how it was written in the Italian of the street people, in other words, it could be understood by the whole of Italy, not just the rich. Chaucer wanted to do the same thing, but came to halt when he was deciding what language to write it in, he thought of Russian and other languages, but soon decided on English. This is extremely important because it is the first time that English has ever been written down, usually it is just a spoken language with no written form. This is why it was so important to the English language that he wrote it specifically in English. Giving the language a written form, sort of. It was a mixture of German of the east and native language from the Anglo Saxons. It is difficult to read, because this is the first time English has been written down, so there wasn’t any set way to spell words, and they were spelled how they sounded phonetically.”Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote The droghte of March Hath Perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich liquor” (Page 97 Lines 1-3). Typically, this meant that the same word was spelled fifty different ways throughout the entire Prologue. Though it is hard to read it is still an excellent story, and has very depth in its characters, which are fully developed and give further detail into the story and make it one of the best stories in English there is today.
Chaucer's "The Miller's Tale" should be tragic, because a lot of horrible things happen to the characters. The carpenter's wife is disloyal to him, sleeping with others and making fun of him with Nicholas. Also, he is depicted as a fool. However, readers get a humorous feeling from the story, rather than feeling sorry for the carpenter's unfair life. Chaucer makes the whole story come across as comic rather than tragic. This humor is created by the Miller's narration, the use of irony, the cartoon-like characters, and the twists of plot. These elements combine to produce an emotional distance which enhances the comic effect.
Cornelius, Michael G. "Sex and Punishment in Geoffrey Chaucer's 'The Miller's Tale.'" Human Sexuality. New York: Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2009. 95-104. [ILL]
...riting the story. When he writes the story of the Miller the Miller makes references to animals that you wouldn’t think of comparing someone too. It makes the ability to take the story less serious because we cannot get past the thoughts the Miller is presenting us with. One of the characters most argued about is the Wife of Bath she is viewed as either a positive outlook for feminists but at the same time can also be seen as bringing the generation of women back. Chaucer wrote the tales as a collective piece of knowledge that pushes the limits of the traditional times in which he wrote them in.
Each pilgrim claims to have a tale good enough to match, or "quite," the previous tale told. The constant presence of competition in the tales—which often takes on an odd tone, as the combatants treat it more as a debate over whom the gods will or should choose to support and guide to victory— is echoed by the "route" of travellers telling them. And yet, as each character boasts of his or her tale, they constantly hedge their own bets, warning of the possibility that they might err in some way as they tell their story, and asking their company to absolve them of their flaws in advance. The most striking example of this is the Miller. The drunk, boorish Miller interrupts the pecking order, leaping over "better" men such as the Monk and the Man of Law in order to share a tale with which he plans to "quite the Knightes tale." When told by the Host to know his place, he threatens to leave the company unless he is permitted to tell his tale, and has to this point come across as brash and very confident in his abilities. However, when the Host relents and allows the Miller to have the floor, he backtracks: "But first I make a protestacioun, That I am dronke--- I knowe it by my soun." While the Pagans in the Knight 's tale blame failures on Fortune, the Miller, far more plain and earthly than the Knight or any of his characters, has a more practical scapegoat in mind: the
...me and symbol from "The Pardoner's Tale," is that greed may convince people to do wrong, while at the same time, and be stabbing a friend in the back. Next, in "The Nun's Priest's Tale," the theme is to be cautious and careful of the sincerity of flattery from those that one does not know. Lastly, in "The Wife of Bath," punishment can result in a person improving and redeeming himself or herself. Or they can also change from bad to good because of a certain punishment they have received. By using all these different types of writing in his stories, Chaucer tries to demonstrate themes and symbols, which a person may encounter in one's life. Stories are used to show that symbols are ways to represent or show various themes in literature. Finally, throughout all these tales there are consequences for peoples actions, which means that no task shall ever get over looked.
In this example, Chaucer, by writing this parody, is trying to express the idea that a lot of the ideals of chivalry are a ...
Arrathoon, Leigh A. "The Miller's Tale," Chaucer and the Craft of Fiction. Ed. Leigh A. Arrathoon, Rochester, Michigan: Solaris Press, Inc. 1986. 241-318
“The Miller’s Tale” perfectly incorporates all of the necessary components that make up a winning tale. In Chaucer’s, The Canterbury Tales, “The Miller’s Tale” fully satisfies every rule required by the Host, in a humorous and intriguing way. He uses the misfortune of the characters to grasp the reader’s attention, and keep him or her interested throughout the story. In the tale, Chaucer includes the idea of religious corruption happening in England during the fourteenth-century. He takes this negative idea and manipulates it into comedic relief by making both Nicholas and Absalom clerks. The actions of those characters, who were supposed to be revered due to their religious position, proves Chaucer’s negative view of the Catholic Church in England at that time. Through Chaucer’s incorporation of fourteenth-century religious corruption,
In both the Miller’s Tale and the Wife of Bath’s Tale, Chaucer uses his characters and stories in order to project various stereotypes to the reader. Although varying a tad bit throughout the book, the tone that seems to be drawn from the stories is that women are manipulating, sinful, and power hungry, while men are considered gullible and rash. Its through understand and analyzing these stereotypes that we can fully understand what Chaucer’s stories are trying to convey to us.
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 being greedy. The crooked pardoner and the honest reeve have different purposes for telling their tales, but their stories have the same major theme; sins deserve punishment.
Tales written in Canterbury Tales divulge the characteristics of 31 characters, each one particularly refined in their own unique way. Geoffrey Chaucer made it easy for the reader to divulge oneself in the characteristics of just one character. One of these characters includes the Pardoner. In many of the stories in Canterbury Tales, they often reflect the characteristics of the character telling them, as if each story is meticulously crafted to reflect upon the characters telling them. The Pardoners allegoric tale appears to be especially evident to this, as The Pardoners tale conveys many personal traits including greed, hypocrisy, and arrogance.
The Miller is large and imposing person who personifies a crooked, but likeable businessman. In "The General Prologue," Chaucer describes the Miller as having a "thombe of gold, (563)" which the footnote on page 32 of The Riverside Chaucer notes, "is an ironic reference to a proverb, with the implication that there are no honest millers." The descr...
In the Middle Ages, when The Canterbury Tales was written, society became captivated by love and the thought of courtly and debonair love was the governing part of all relationships and commanded how love should be conducted. These principles changed literature completely and created a new genre dedicated to brave, valorous knights embarking on noble quests with the intention of some reward, whether that be their life, lover, or any other want. The Canterbury Tales, written in the 14th century by Geoffrey Chaucer, accurately portrays and depicts this type of genre. Containing a collection of stories within the main novel, only one of those stories, entitled “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”, truly outlines the 14th century community beliefs on courtly love.