Comparing Cantebury Tales 'And' The Pardoner's Tale

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Geoffrey Chaucer saw the twisted and wicked things going on in his society and wrote The Canterbury Tales in an effort to open citizen’s eyes to how the church was acting, as well as themselves. Two of the tales he writes are “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”, they both have two very different themes but are just as equally important to one another. One tale having to deal with the church and the other dealing with how gender roles were being played. Both of these tales, as well as the rest of the tales that he wrote, show that Chaucer had a very bleak and negative outlook towards his society and hoped to help change is with the tales. The first tale is “The Pardoner’s Tale”, the Pardoner is a member of the church who makes others repent for their sins, one of the sins being greed. During Chaucer’s period the pardoners would take the donations that were given …show more content…

In Chaucer’s time period women were supposed to be extremely submissive in love and marriage.When the queen tells the man he must learn and adapt to the needs of the girl or he will be beheaded you can tell the wife is very feministic and believes women should be the head of the house, “I grante the lyf if thou kanst tellen what thyng it is that woomen moost desiren”. Unlike the other housewives of the time she was also very lustful and believes in a happy life filled with sex, “But wel I woot expres, withoute lye, God bad us for to wexe and multiplye: That gentil text can I wel understonde.” she is saying it’s difficult to fulfill the commandment “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the Earth!” without living a life where there is much sexual encounters. I feel like Chaucer added the Wife of Bath to show the men who believe their wives are no good that they could be a lot worse and that they should cherish their wives way more than they actually

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