When Chaucer wrote his Canterbury Tales he wrote for the people of Europe who didn’t have the formal education and insights into life that he did. Chaucer wrote with a cynical humor that made the people laugh and the people who he wrote about seem like jokes to their professions. He writes about nuns that flirt, friars that sleep around and marries off his brides, a pardoner who preaches his sins for gain, and the man who’s seen it all, the host. His humor is anything from the simplest of sarcastic muses where he mocks the person and their actions like he did the nun who ‘spoke’ French, but they were also crude like the Things the wife of bath said about her husbands. The satire that Chaucer used varies from sarcasm and cynicism to rude and brutal blunt honesty. The Wife of Bath Prologue is the brutal and blunt set of short tales that makes the man seem the fool when his wife played all the cards. The wife’s tale was a play to seem smart, to prove the phrase, “I am the king of this house, and my wife gave me permission to say so.” is true. She told the stories about how she manipulated her husband, mocked him, and put them on a leash. The others in the party, at least the Friar and Pardoner, took these …show more content…
words to heart and wanted to listen while others, such as the Summoner, were offended. These ‘jokes’, so to speak, were meant to insult only te man who believed that she, Alice, was wrong in manipulating her husband this way. In that time the people who would be angered by this was every man who believed that the man was the leader of his house. The sheer idea, to them, that a woman was in control without them knowing it, or that she should be, or could be, is what angered them. The Wife of Bath Tale is much the same in its power to anger the men who read it, though its purpose was to teach a lesson in its humor instead of humiliate as her prologue did. Alice told a story about a man who was sent on a quest to find out what all women want. He, a knight, a man usually seen as wise and to be reckoned with was held a fool by the will of two women. One was the queen who he was given the question by, and the second was the old woman who gave him the answer. This humor was simple and direct, it was a mockery of the man that was held in regard, almost as much so as the preacher that sleeps around being the one whose life is an irony to his role. The Pardoner’s Prologue is a pardoner, or a man who is supposed to give pardons for sins that does the opposite, making his humor, or the satire used in his prologue, the sheer irony of everything he is against what he says.
The Pardoner admits that he is not a holy man, despite the things he preaches. He tells that gluttony and pride are deadly sins, gaining money and wealth all the while from the power behind his words. He admits that it is not the right thing, but says that what has he to lose by gaining while he is alive by ‘helping’ others absolve themselves of their sins. “The pardoner is unfortunately so celebrated in literature for the abuses with which he is found associated that his true function within the Church is almost entirely obscured.”
(Kellogg) The Pardoner’s Tale is about greed, just as his prologue was, but instead of being contradictory it is true to its point, but the satire in this tale is that the listeners cannot take it seriously when this man, this Pardoner, is giving it. Most people have heard the saying, “Do as I say not as I do.” at least once. This saying is the idea that makes this story funny, or at least comical to the reader. The fact that this holy man was such a bad man and was still going to preach, not only about sin, but f his own? That is the satire Chaucer used in this one, the satire of irony. All in all, Chaucer uses a great many forms of satire to get his point across to the people who read his tale. He uses a large variety of irony that comes across in many different forms. In The Wife of Bath’s Tale, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, The Pardoner’s Tale, and The Pardoner’s Prologue, Chaucer uses the irony of words vs. actions, the irony of place vs. action, and sheer brutal honesty to get his point across, and that point was that none of these people were as they seemed.
Not many authors will express their honest opinion. However in The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer will use sarcasm for the characters he dislikes, but will express his appreciation for the ones he admires. He will introduce each character on the journey to Canterbury. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer values the qualities of leadership brought about by the Knight, moral brought about by the Parson, and cheerfulness brought by the Franklin.
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.
The Wife of Bath is portrayed as a strong-willed, alpha female. The Wife of Bath upholds the misogynistic ideas of Chaucer's time because she is a controlling, manipulative, know-it-all woman. Her personality and behavior both reflect the negative attributes that women were shamed for during that time. She is opinionated, dominate, and diabolical; all qualities that were not accepted easily in a woman. She defied the norm of that time.
myself be a full vicious man, A moral tale yet I you telle kan.’ The
In The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, The Wife of Bath seems to be one of the more vivacious characters on the pilgrimage. Dame Alice has radical views about women and marriage in a time when women were expected to be passive toward men. There are many things consistent between The Wife of Bath's prologue and her tale. The most apparent similarities that clearly depict the comparison between the prologue and the tale are dominance of both women over their husbands, the duplication of appearance between the old hag and Dame Alice and finally the reality is that the fifth husband and the knight are very alike in personality. Although there are some contrasts amid the prologue and the tale, the resemblance far outweigh them.
First, it is essential to know the definition of parody as “the imitative use of the words, style, attitude, tone and ideas of an author in such a way as to make them ridiculous. Its purpose may be corrective as well as derisive” (Cuddon, 660). What Chaucer wants to prove in the course of the tales is that how ridiculous is the society showing certain behaviour codes using irony or simply mocking of the stereotypes that people believed important in that epoch.
During Chaucer’s time, there was only one church, the Roman Catholic Church. There is only one church because the Protestant movement hasn’t started yet, it started in the 16th century. Anyone who was a member of the Roman Catholic Church, for example a Pardoner, a Summoner, or a Friar, are not to have sex, or party around, as well as not having money. Chaucer notices that some of these people in the Church break these rules repeatedly. Chaucer uses satire to brilliantly describe the hypocrisy in the church. Although Chaucer may come off as anti-religious, he is religious, he is against anti-hypocrisy. The first character Chaucer uses satire on is the Friar. Chaucer tells his audience that the Friar liked to sleep around a lot with women. The Friar also got lots of girls pregnant and then married them off to men in the church. The Friar was also very wealthy, and liked to party. Which are clear violations of the church’s code. To make things worse, Chaucer said that this particular Friar was better than others. The next characters that Chaucer introduced were the Pardoner and the Summoner. The Summoner’s job in a church is to find people who have committed sin and bring them to the church so that their sins can be forgiven by the Pardoner. However, the Summoner abused his power by blackmailing people to go see the Pardoner or else they
...ished in real society. It is through of the eyes of Chaucer the pilgrim, and through his tendency to use long words, complicated sentences and paragraphs, attractive mannerisms of expression and absurd situations that the parodist features can be easily identified and then analysed. Expressions like “men should not be too serious at a game” shows how everything is being softened so as not to bother anyone, but amuse them and invite them to read, for later inspire the sense of criticism – satire. Chaucer the poet is “therefore a man who takes it upon himself to correct censure and ridicule the foolishness and vices of society and thus to bring contempt and mockery upon anomalies from a desirable and civilized norm”. Thus, Chaucer’s collection of parodies actually conveys a satire: a protest, a sublimation and refinement of anger and indignation of the medieval times.
The Canterbury Tales is a literary masterpiece in which the brilliant author Geoffrey Chaucer sought out to accomplish various goals. Chaucer wrote his tales during the late 1300’s. This puts him right at the beginning of the decline of the Middle Ages. Historically, we know that a middle class was just starting to take shape at this time, due to the emerging commerce industry. Chaucer was able to see the importance and future success of the middle class, and wrote his work with them in mind. Knowing that the middle class was not interested in lofty philosophical literature, Chaucer wrote his work as an extremely comical and entertaining piece that would be more interesting to his audience. Also, Chaucer tried to reach the middle class by writing The Canterbury Tales in English, the language of the middle class rather than French, the language of the educated upper class. The most impressive aspect of Chaucer’s writing is how he incorporated into his piece some of his own controversial views of society, but yet kept it very entertaining and light on the surface level. One of the most prevalent of these ideas was his view that certain aspects of the church had become corrupt. This idea sharply contrasted previous Middle Age thought, which excepted the church’s absolute power and goodness unquestionably. He used corrupt church officials in his tales to illustrate to his audience that certain aspects of the church needed to be reformed. The most intriguing of these characters was the Pardoner. Chaucer’s satirical account of the Pardoner is written in a very matter-of-fact manner that made it even more unsettling with his audience. Chaucer uses his straightforwardness regarding the hypocrisy of the Pardoner, suggestive physiognomy of the character, and an interesting scene at the conclusion of the Pardoner’s Tale to inculcate his views of the church to his audience. The way that Chaucer used these literary devices to subtly make his views known to an audience while hooking them with entertainment, shows that Chaucer was truly a literary genius.
The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales is a masterpiece of satire due to the frequent use of verbal irony and insults towards the characters and their roles in society. A major source of Irony is Chaucer’s representation of the Church. He uses the Prioress, the Monk and the Friar, who are all supposed to be holy virtuous people to represent the Church. In his writing he suggests that they are actually corrupt, break their vows and in no way model the “holiness” of Christianity.
The Wife of Bath is a complex character-she is different from the way she represents herself. Maybe not even what she herself thinks she is. On the surface, it seems as though she is a feminist, defending the rights and power of women over men. She also describes how she dominates her husband, playing on a fear that was common to men. From a point of view of a man during that time period, she seemed to illustrate all of the wrongs that men found in women. Such as a weak parody of what men, then saw as feminists. The Wife of Bath constantly emphasizes the negative implications of women throughout the ages. She describes women as greedy, controlling, and dishonest.
Furthermore, the pardoner as well shows hypocrisy through his actions to get money, “For in his trunk he had a pillow-case,Which he asserted was Our Lady’s veil. ,He said he had a gobbet of the sail,Saint peter had the time when he made bold/ to walk the waves, till Jesu Christ took hold”(Chaucer 139). The host explains to us how the pardoner scams the people on the pilgrimage with him. The pardoner tricks then think that he has very important artifacts related to the church and its religious history, when the truth is that it simple just is ordinary things like a pillow case. This displaying the pardoner hypocrisy through the fact that he only cares about money and materialized object, while the lord says that, that is the least valuable thing.
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.
Chaucer is arguably the greatest author of all time. The reasoning behind this accusation is because he is the father of the English language. Chaucer is the king of writing of controversial items that highly enrage people. Chaucer writes many satires being very iconoclastic towards many things he doesn’t agree with. Many of these statements anger a lot of people to this day. Chaucer’s “methods of satire seem to have an inevitability and rightness which preclude either surprise or analysis” (Woolf, Chaucer as a Satirist in the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales). A lot of these satires that Chaucer writes come from the book Canterbury Tales.
Chaucer's Irony - The Canterbury Tales Chaucer's Irony Irony is a vitally important part of The Canterbury Tales, and Chaucer's ingenious use of this literary device does a lot to provide this book with the classic status it enjoys even today. Chaucer has mastered the techniques required to skilfully put his points across and subtle irony and satire is particularly effective in making a point. The Canterbury Tales are well-known as an attack on the Church and its rôle in fourteenth century society. With the ambiguity introduced by the naïve and ignorant "Chaucer the pilgrim", the writer is able to make ironic attacks on characters and what they represent from a whole new angle. The differences in opinion of Chaucer the pilgrim and Chaucer the writer are much more than nuances - the two personas are very often diametrically opposed so as to cause effectual irony.