Chaucer's Canterbury Tales - Concept of Charity in the General Prologue

946 Words2 Pages

The Concept of Charity in the General Prologue

In the "General Prologue," Chaucer presents an array of characters from

the 1400's in order to paint portraits of human dishonesty and stupidity as well

as virtue. Out of these twenty-nine character portraits three of them are

especially interesting because they deal with charity. Charity during the

1400's, was a virtue of both religious and human traits. One character, the

Parson, exemplifies Chaucer's idea of charity, and two characters, Prioress, and

Friar, to satirize the idea of charity and show that they are using charity for

either devious reasons or out of convention or habit.

According to the definition from the Webster's dictionary, charity means

giving to the needy and helping the poor. In Chaucer's time, however, charity

meant much more. It included a love of G-d and doing the will of G-d as well as

the kind of person one is. Thus Charity had two parts, one human, the other

divine. Two parts that mixed in different portions depending on a person.

Charity was a human virtue that the Church encouraged. People believed that if

one does something good, he will be rewarded by G-d. Many people did meaningful,

charitable things out the goodness of their hearts, but others had done it for

other reasons. Those reasons included making money from people's suffering and

giving to charity because someone told them to do so, rather than from the

goodness of their hearts or to ease the suffering of others. Chaucer plays off

both of these parts of charity in his portraits to show how they can be combined

differently in different people and to distinguish "true" charity from "false"

charity.

Parson exemplifies Chaucer's idea of true charity. Even though Parson

does not have any money, he considers himself rich spiritually. Going around

the village, he teaches the poor and those who can't go to church about what G-d

is and how to be a religious person. He gives more than he receives. In fact,

he avoids preaching to the rich and well-to-do because he prefers going to the

humble and poor, who truly need his help and G-d. He doesn't run to London to

earn easy bread

Open Document