Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Medieval western civilization
Chaucer's use of women in his writing
Medieval western civilization
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Medieval western civilization
In the General Prologue Chaucer had many characters he used to describe and reflect on the social classes of the medieval society. He had characters that went anywhere from the highest to the lowest class. For example he described the Doctor, the Woman and the Skipper. He described the Doctor by telling how he was smart, talked well and had a reputation for being a good doctor. He also described his clothing in derail telling about his clothes being blood red and being made of fine silk. He also described how he was mainly in it for the money. The doctor showed how even tho he was high class and had lots of money he was only in his job and on the pilgrimage for the money. The woman he described as being being a good one at getting married.
Yet Chaucer has been in himself representing something a little closer to egalitarianism. For the reason that he proves through both the fifth husbands actions, Alisoun’s selfishness, and the wife of bath’s tale that both women and men could be terrible. That through understanding that the women of this era were expected to be care- takers; he expresses this also through his interpretation of the prioress that holds the same cockiness of the wife of Bath. That although she thought herself to be high and mighty more educated than most she too was just putting up an image just as the prioress did by faking a French accent in order to appear more
Elizabethan based their people upon the divine order, known as the Great Chain of being, which accommodated everything in the whole universe.
In The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, the stereotypes and roles in society are reexamined and made new through the characters in the book. Chaucer discusses different stereotypes and separates his characters from the social norm by giving them highly ironic and/or unusual characteristics. Specifically, in the stories of The Wife of Bath and The Miller’s Tale, Chaucer examines stereotypes of women and men and attempts to define their basic wants and needs.
Chaucer used controversies to create character. He wanted his characters to teach the readers something new about life. The Wife of Bath and the Pardoner demonstrate Chaucer’s way of creating characters based on the sexuality of the medieval period.
During the 14th century an extreme change took place in society, and a middle class arose between the higher class of nobility and the working class of the commoners (Reid). This significant change caused a median between the two classes, whereas before the higher class and lower class were totally separated from each other. Before the middle class, the upper class looked down upon the commoners, but the establishment of the middle class formed a happy medium where the people could relate to both classes. Chaucer, the author of “The Miller’s Tale”, was a part of this middle class. Chaucer was the son of a wine merchant and spent most of his time at the harbor meeting people of all classes which would later reflect in his writing (Reid). Chaucer made the English language important and wrote in extreme satire, heckling both the noble class and the class of commoners (Reid). For example, “The Miller’s Tale”, tells a fabliau or dirty story that people can relate to for entertainment (Reid). In the poem “The Miller’s Tale”, three characters can be portrayed as evil, but Alison is considerably worse because she is an adulterer, a liar, and inhumane.
The Canterbury Tales begins with different social classes coming together to produce a change. In the prologue we see Chaucer going against the theory of Marxism. The pilgrims have come together to ride to Canterbury to see the holy martyr. Chaucer who is the narrator in the story introduces us to the many different people going on the pilgrimage. We see people of high social class, such as The Knight and lower class, such as the miller. The idea of everyone coming together
Chaucer uses the Prioress, the Monk and the Friar to represent his views on the Church. He makes the three model members of the Church appear to have no problems with self-indulgence, greed, and being unfaithful to their vows. He displays his anti skeptical thoughts of the faults of the medieval church by making fun of its teachings and the people of the church, who use it for personal gain. Chaucer see’s the church as corrupt, hypocritical and greedy.
... Therefore, the traditional feudal system fell apart, and the middle class began to grow. The middle class tend to question the beliefs of moral standards and religion in their lives. Chaucer has members of the middle class as being a third of the total amount of pilgrims. The rise of the middle class and the decline of the nobility were illustrated by the numbers in the pilgrimage. Although in Chaucer’s society, the middle class was not a third of the population, he felt it was important to make them a large part of his story, due to their rising importance. The Knight is symbolic of those who belong in the highest social class, or the nobility. His peacemaking, gentle behavior is meant to contrast the lower social class, or the Miller and Reeve characters. The Knight is one of the only characters who has a noble position, and he keeps to the old ideals of chivalry.
Social class was the foundation of everyday life during the Middle Ages. Social class played a significant role in the lives of medieval people. The aristocracy class and the immoral lower class were often viewed by society as practically different races. In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer shows the wide variance among the classes in every aspect of their daily lives. The zeitgeist of the Middle Ages can be seen through his illustration of differences between classes in moral behavior, economic power, the autonomy and education of women during the Middle Ages.
will not fade from the memories of the population. The stories of Beowolf are a
In The General Prologue, Chaucer’s narrator depicts a number of pilgrimages who represent different estates: the chivalrous and righteous Knight, the fashionable young Squire in the military estate; the graceful and merciful Prioresse, the rich Monk who breaks down the tradition, the slick Friar in the clergy estate; the indebted Merchant, the knowledgeable Clerk in the professional estate. That group of people reflects the contemporary situation of the whole English society. Chaucer uses irony as a primarily rhetorical device to reveal the corruption of those people. Squire, Prioresse and Clerk are three typical figures in the poem.
In her first published novel, Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen brought to life the struggles and instability of the English hierarchy in the early 19th century. Through the heartaches and happiness shared by Elinor Dashwood, who represented sense and her sister Marianne, who stood for sensibility, Austen tells a story of sisters who plummet from the upper class to the lower crust of society and the characters that surround them. Austen juxtaposes the upper and lower classes in English society to give the reader a full understanding of the motivation to be a part of the upper class and the sacrifices one will give up to achieve such status. Austen exposes the corruptness of society, the significance of class and the fundamental building blocks both are to the decision-making surrounding her protagonists, Marianne and Elinor.
Geoffrey Chaucer was a on a mission when he wrote The Canterbury Tales. That mission was to create a satire that attacked three major institutions. Raphel displays, “Medieval society was divided into three estates: the Church (those who prayed), the Nobility (those who fought), and the Patriarchy. The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales is an estates satire.” Chaucer wanted to shed light on the institutions that were taking advantage of the everyday man. Chaucer does this by making up tales about certain people that she light to the undercover world of the institutions. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses satire to attack the Church, the Patriarchy, and the Nobility.
In the General Prologue, Chaucer describes in details the appearance or behavior of the pilgrims to suggest the character’s psychological or moral temperament. By doing this way, one can understand more about the characteristic or the inner person of the pilgrims.
Chaucer's society represents every social class. In doing so, it shows what it takes to actually make a society function. The different people carry different stories to share. These stories carry lessons learned in hopes of sharing them with others so that they may not end up in the same predicaments. After all, that is the main point of sharing stories, isn't it?