In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer utilizes satire when describing the pilgrims with which he is traveling. This satire reveals the corruption that is prevalent in the Church; many members of the clergy take advantage of their positions, using their power for personal gain. Chaucer holds the people that belong to the Church at a higher standard, believing that they should be pure. The first of the corrupt pilgrims is the Monk. He blatantly disregards the rules of the monasteries, "But this same text he held not worth an oyster;/And I said his opinion was right good" (182-183). Because the Monk prefers to live lavishly instead of simplistically—the way Monks are supp The Friar, another member of the Church, is also satirized. The narrator states,
“He was the finest beggar of his house” (252). The Friar is a successful beggar because he makes such a good living begging from the wealthy people in his district. Instead of helping the poor, he uses this income for himself. In this way he is also a "fine" beggar because he does own expensive clothes that he wears on arbitration days. Friars were not allowed to mediate for profit, so this is another way he is a corrupt member of the Church. The Friar allows sinners to pay him for forgiveness when they are unable to show remorse for their sins. The Parson is the only pilgrim belonging to the Church that is able to escape any sort of satire from the narrator.
Satire. Satire is a biting literary tool, one that Geoffery Chaucer used liberally when he wrote his Canterbury Tales. Webster's New World Dictionary says that satire is "the use of ridicule, sarcasm, etc. to attack vices, follies, etc." Using that definition, I think that all of the pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales are satirized to some extent; some of the satirizations are more subtle than others. The Knight is one of the pilgrims that is more subtly satirized.
However, after hearing his tale it is quite shocking about his frankness about his own hypocrisy. We know that he bluntly accuses himself of fraud, avarice, and gluttony, all things that he preaches against throughout this tale. It is in lines, 432-433 that the Pardoner states, “But that is not my principal intent; I preach nothing but for convenience.” It is here that we truly begin to learn that The Pardoner’s Tale is merely an example of a story that is often used by preachers to emphasize a moral point to their audience. That is why, this tale in particular helps to comprehend Chaucer’s own opinions, and how he used satire to display them.
Chaucer identifies a pardoner as his main character for the story and utilizes the situational and verbal irony found in the pardoner’s interactions and deplorable personality to demonstrate his belief in the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church during this time. Chaucer first begins his sly jab at the Church’s motives through the description of the Pardoner’s physical appearance and attitude in his “Canterbury Tales.” Chaucer uses the Pardoner as a representation of the Church as a whole, and by describing the Pardoner and his defects, is able to show what he thinks of the Roman Catholic Church. All people present in the “Canterbury Tales” must tell a tale as a part of a story-telling contest, and the pilgrim Chaucer, the character in the story Chaucer uses to portray himself, writes down the tales as they are told, as well as the story teller. The description of the Pardoner hints at the relationship and similarity between the Pardoner and the Church as a whole, as well as marks the beginning of the irony to be observed throughout the “Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale.”
The Canterbury Tales can be understood as a Chaucerian satire according many readers. Chaucer sets out to deliberately upset the social order present at that time and to mock the faults present in the characters. Although he baffles about the complexity of the characters, Chaucer also praises and condemns characters for their unique qualities. Chaucer further gives us feedback of what actions the characters are taking in their lives. Many of the pilgrims are headed off to Canterbury, to worship the relics of Saint Thomas Becket. Thomas Becket was murdered by his friend King Henry and soon Canterbury became a pilgrimage site for people to pray for their healings. As for Chaucer, he observed both high and lower social class to get a better perception of how social class made a difference in the character’s lives. Chaucer always believed that true gentility showed what class you fell into instead of judging it on social rank and wealth. To show that true gentility gives a character true rank in society, Chaucer in the “Prologue” of The Canterbury Tales illustrates the variance of life in the eyes of the honest and truthful Knight, the shrewd Merchant, and the good-hearted Plowman.
The Canterbury Tales is a very popular and well known set of stories, written by Geoffrey Chaucer. This collection of stories is great entertainment and some even provide very good moral lessons; most of these stories show the contempt Chaucer had for the Church of England which had control at the time over most of England. Chaucer’s bias towards the corruption of the Church is best demonstrated in the Pardoner’s Prologue, in contradiction with the Parson’s Tale, and the level of power within the Church structure. These are two of the stories of the many that are in The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer uses the Pardoner as a high level leader who is corrupt and yet enables him to convert the sinners even if he does it for personal gain. While the Parson is of lower standing in the Church, he is not corrupt, and gives the message to the pilgrims so that they might be forgiven.
“The Canterbury Tales” was written in the 14th century by Geoffrey Chaucer. These tales constitutes a frame story which each pilgrim has to tell their own story to the Chaucer, the pilgrim; not the poet. As we know, the tale itself is a satire, but the stylistic structure in the tales creates a sense that can be a parody as well. To support this idea of parody, it is need to know the definition of parody and how Chaucer use this style to make his own ideas clear through the general prologue and the tales such as “The Miller’s Tale” and “The Knight’s Tale”.
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
Many pilgrims in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales held a religious position. Some of these people’s personal ideas have caused debates and criticism over Chaucer’s opinion of the Catholic Church. Critics have discussed the ideas that were presented both subtly and openly. Two of the pilgrims and their tales will be discussed: the Prioress and the Pardoner. Both of these tales offer points of criticism in the Catholic Church.
The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, is a collection of short stories told amongst pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. The pilgrims are competing against one another to see who can tell the best story on their trip. Along the way Chaucer makes quick comments and critics about the travelers. Some pilgrims he likes, for example the Parson. Others like the Pardoner, are disliked strongly by Chaucer. He also finds some pilgrims entertaining, like the Nun. She is described as a women who, instead of centering her life round Christ, tries to impress everyone. Although in his prologue Chaucer pokes fun at the Nun’s appearance and behavior, ultimately the readers can see that Chaucer
In Geoffrey Chaucer’s, The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer introduces twenty nine pilgrims, who are on a horseback trip to Canterbury. These twenty nine pilgrims desire to receive a blessing on their pilgrimage from St. Thomas a Becket. The pilgrims start out at the Tabard Inn and decide to each tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two more on the way back to London. Chaucer views the Church as being hypocritical and displaying a lack of spirituality. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer uses the Nun in the “General Prologue”, the friar from the “General Prologue” and the Monk in the “General Prologue” to show the hypocrisy in the clergy.
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.
My presentation is based an article titled The Inhibited and the Uninhibited: Ironic Structure in the Miller’s Tale it s written by Earle Birney. The literary theme that Birney is discussing in his essay is structural irony. Structural irony is basically a series of ironic events and instances that finally build up to create a climax. The events and the climax the Birney chooses to focus his essay on are the events that lead towards the end when almost each character suffers an ironic event:
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'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.
The Canterbury Tales is a great contemplation of stories, that display humorous and ironic examples of medieval life, which imitate moral and ethical problems in history and even those presented today. Chaucer owed a great deal to the authors who produced these works before his time. Chaucer tweaked their materials, gave them new meanings and revealed unscathed truths, thus providing fresh ideas to his readers. Chaucer's main goal for these tales was to create settings in which people can relate, to portray lessons and the irony of human existence.