Critity In Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

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The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is set up with a frame tale with 29 pilgrims, and these pilgrims are going on a journey to Canterbury to worship at the shrine of Thomas Becket. These pilgrims represented different parts of society during the time of Chaucer, and Chaucer used the pilgrims to draw critism of the different classes of his time. Chaucer used how society viewed the appearance of people and how it related it to their characteristics to make his critiques of certain aspects of society. The Nun Prioresses is a prime example of Chaucer’s use of physical appearance to make criticism of a certain social class. In the general prologue, the nun’s non-physical characteristics describe her as trying to be better than herself by,” …show more content…

The reader has to ask what is the point of making a “curvy” or describing her lips. The reader has to pay attention to the non-physical details of the nun which talk about she tries to make herself look like she is high class. She wants to impress people around her by using her poor French that was spoken with a Stratford ascent (Line 124-125). The nun would also use her looks to impress the men around her by showing off her forehead or her curves. Chaucer used the nun as his vessel to critique the members of the church on how vain they could be. This vainity was shown by the members of the church by the way they acted and how they tried to obtain objects like a “broche of gold” (Line 160) that made them looked wealthy in which as a member of the church they should not need because of the words Jesus said,” Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew …show more content…

The job of the summoner was to find those who were not living a “holy” life and bring them to the court. This “unholy” life that they would get people for were for things like adultery. The narrator tells the reader of one of the acts of this summoner,” A good felawe to have his concubyn/A twelf-month and excuse him ate fulle;/Ful prively a finch eek could he pulle,” these lines tell the reader that the summoner would sleep around with girls which was one thing he would arrest people for. Chaucer use the ugliness of the summoner to show the hypocrisy of the church. Things the members would condemn would be things they would be

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