The Second Nun is barely described in The General Prologue, simply as ‘another nonne’, but from her behavior we understand that she is truly loyal to God and chaste. The fact that she is a pilgrim influences the interpretation and analysis. She does not have the personal prologue like other characters do, she just tells her story. She begins her tale with a prologue in which she offers an invocation to the Virgin Mary, so her story is a story of chastity. The Nun tells a tale about a woman, who marries a young man named Valerian, and keeps her virginity because of religion. On their wedding night she informs Valerian that a guardian angel will kill anyone who violates her body. The night cam, and to bedde moste she gon With hir housbonde, …show more content…
Chaucer’s Prioress, Madame Eglentyne, is the first woman pilgrim mentioned in The Prologue. She is described as an elegant, sensitive lady with grey eyes, small, soft, red lips and a wide forehead. She is well-mannered, she smiles sweetly, she likes pets, she knows how to chant liturgy, she speaks French. The fact that the Prioress knows such politeness shows that she is attracted more to fashionable society than to the convent. These all qualities are more suitable to the courtly lady than to the nun. In medieval convent pets were strongly discouraged or forbidden. Since the nun was supposed to direct her love toward God alone, a pet would be a distraction. The Prioress’s feeding small animals with roast meat and white bread shows that her convent is extravagant and that leftovers are not being given to the poor. In the Prioress’s tale she calls on the Virgin Mary to guide her tale. In an Asian city, a Christian school is located at the edge of a Jewish ghetto. A seven-year-old boy, a widow’s son, attends the school. He is a devout Christian, and loves to sing. Singing the song on his way through the ghetto, some Jews hire a murderer to cut his throat and throw him into a latrine. The Jews refuse to tell the widow where her son is, but he miraculously begins to sing Alma Redemptoris , so the Christian people recover his body, and the magistrate orders the murdering Jews to be drawn apart by horses and then
Saint Christina of Markyate’s story provides more than the religious experiences of a hermit, it presents twelfth-century life in, mostly, the Huntington area of England in a very detailed manner. Baptized as Theodora, Christina of Markyate’s path of religious devotion is claimed to have begun in her early teen years with a vow of chastity (35). This vow was only known to one other person, a close friend named Sueno, until her parents attempted to arrange a marriage for her. Being described as attractive and intelligent, as well as coming from a wealthy family, this was not uncommon for women in Christina’s lifetime. Upon declining the first suitor, a bishop, her hardships begin and, at times, seem as though they were both unlikely to end and
When Chaucer’s knight stands judgment for the rape of an innocent girl, it is the queen’s authority that decides his fate: “And yaf him to the queene, al at hir wille, / To chese wheither she wolde him save or spille” (903-904). Using her power to humiliate the knight even further, she metes out the most ironic of punishments: “I graunte thee lif if thou canst tellen me / What thing is it that wommen most desiren” (910-911). With the queen’s decree, a great importance is placed upon the understanding of a woman’s needs—for this knowledge is the only hope in saving a man’s
A large number of Jews are forced into a train car. The ride is very cramped and uncomfortable. A woman called Madame Shächter starts shouting about a fire that she can see every night. Her little boy clings to her and cries. Eventually the Jews tie her, gag her, and even hit her. They finally make it to Auschwitz at what seemed to be midnight, and see the flames Madame Shächter was yelling about. A tall crematory spewing flames and smoke loomed over them.
In his Canterbury Tales, Chaucer fully explicates the cultural standard known as courtesy through satire. In the fourteenth century, courtesy embodied sophistication and an education in English international culture. The legends of chivalric knights, conversing in the language of courtly love, matured during this later medieval period. Chaucer himself matured in the King's Court, as is revealed in his cultural status, but he also retained an anecdotal humor about courtesy. One must only peruse his Tales to discern these sentiments, for Chaucer’s view of courtesy can seem shocking and, all together, obscene at times, it’s the similarity of the differences that make Chaucer’s tales superior. An example of this can be seen through Nicholas’ attempt at “courting” Alison versus Arcita and Palamon’s endeavors at courting Emily. Nicholas' anxious and lewd behavior, in conjunction with his explicit sexual connotation, demonstrates Chaucer’s more farcical side; where as, the manner in which Arcita and Palamon court Emily can seem more satirical. In the Miller's Tale, Chaucer juxtaposes courtly love with animalistic lust, while in the Knight’s tale, the subject of chivalry is held with much higher regard, and used as a florid, glorious attribute. These numerous references provide the reader with a remarkably rich image of the culture and class structure of late fourteenth century England.
The use of euphemism and crudeness in “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue” is simultaneously unnerving and amusing, and begs the question of how a “wicked” woman like The Wife could ever actually progress in medieval society. Chaucer incorporates subtle allusions to female sexual organs and it is this bluntness (that would raise eyebrows even today) which establishes the Wife as such a powerfully outspoken character. Because courtship in Chaucer’s time was considered worthy of complete submission, the fact that the Wife places such emphasis on domination and even psychological power hints at her being an object of irony (and not a feminist figure “before her time”). It is for this reason that Chaucer’s delicate use of “queynte”- a term from which
In his Canterbury Tales, Chaucer fully explicates the cultural standard known as curteisye through satire. In the fourteenth century curteisye embodied sophistication and an education in French international culture. The legends of chilvalric knights, conversing in the language of courtly love, matured during this later medieval period. Chaucer himself matured in the King's Court, and he reveled in his cultural status, but he also retained an anecdotal humor about curteisye. One must only peruse his Tales to discern these sentiments. In the General Prologue, he meticulously describes the Prioress, satirically examining her impeccable table manners. In the Miller's Tale Chaucer juxtaposes courtly love with animalistic lust, and in various other instances he mentions curteisye, or at least alludes to it, with characteristic Chaucerian irony. These numerous references provide the reader with a remarkably rich image of the culture and class structure of late fourteenth century England.
Chaucer introduces us to several types of women in the General Prologue of his famous work the Canterbury Tales. Among these women are women of rank and social status: the Prioress, the Nun, and the Wife of Bath. Although they are surrounded by various types of men, these women told tales that made men think twice about crossing their paths. As we read about these women in the prologue, we also get a sense of whom they are: they have money, authority, and an air about them that suggests that they are not just on the pilgrimage just to save their own souls (the Wife of Bath definitely shows this trait better than her religious counterparts.) However, it is not just the women who stand for their sisters; the Clerk jumps on the female bandwagon with a tale of his own.
There was a reoccurring theme of anti-Semitism which is clearly seen as the Nun tells her tale. The tale goes on to talk about a young child who is deemed a martyr after a group of Jewish kid’s murder him. This tale fits the Nun’s spiritual belief because many religious members of Christianity did not think highly of the Jewish. “The serpent Satan, our first enemy, who has is wasps’ nest in the heart of Jews” (Chaucer “The Prioress’ tale” 558-59). The tale also shows religious irony, the belief that a certain religion is superior to another is not something that religion teaches, in fact it speaks against it. Many religions teach tolerance for other religions regardless of if they do not share similar ideas. Overall her tale shows readers how hypocritical and ironic religious conflicts were in medieval
Chaucer describes a nun Prioress called Madame Eglantine. A nun should be modest, had to have poverty, and pity. Chaucer describes the nun in the opposite way to show us, how the nun Prioress had all the characteristics that a nun should not have. She was a nun modest, well educated and with good manners. She also had tender feelings, and a strong love for God and his creations. The author connects the relationship between how she sang and with her nose. He is sarcastic when relating her physical and spiritual beauty. "She sang the divine service well, entuning it in her nose in a most seemly way." (122-123) She was a well educated person, who reflects her manners in her language and with her actions. "She spoke French well and properly" in this quote properly means with good manners, not with slang words or with the popular language used in France. "For the French of Paris was unknown to her."(124) All of these characteristics show how the nun Prioress was focused on things that should not be important for a nun.
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.
Chaucer, in his female pilgrimage thought of women as having an evil-like quality that they always tempt and take from men. They were depicted as untrustworthy, selfish and vain and often like caricatures not like real people at all. Through the faults of both men and women, Chaucer showed what is right and wrong and how one should live. Under the surface, however, lies a jaded look of women in the form that in his writings he seems to crate them as caricatures and show how they cause the downfall of men by sometimes appealing to their desires and other times their fears. Chaucer obviously had very opinionated views of the manners and behaviours of women and expressed it strongly in The Canterbury Tales. In his collection of tales, he portrayed two extremes in his prospect of women. The Wife of Bath represented the extravagant and lusty woman where as the Prioress represented the admirable and devoted followers of church. Chaucer delineated the two characters contrastingly in their appearances, general manners, education and most evidently in their behaviour towards men. Yet, in the midst of disparities, both tales left its readers with an unsolved enigma.
...eveals insecurities of him in the process while that itself tells us more about the popular culture in this time. Chaucer, along with many of the other pilgrims attempts to place themselves in a socially desirable or even superior position. With the Narrator having the responsibility of articulating the tales to us in a coherent fashion, he might feel pressure to present himself as all-knowing or superior to his companions rather than show us an honest and unbiased point of view. After all, he is telling the story; the Narrator can ultimately choose to tell us whatever he pleases. The Narrator plays the role of telling tales and providing the groundwork for this pilgrimage story, but since his ideas and opinions are designed in such a particular way; he indirectly tells us so much more about not only about the pilgrimage but of this time period’s culture as a whole.
The Prioress tells a tale set in an Asian town dominated by the Jewry in which usury and other things hateful to Christ occurred. The Christian minority in the town opened a school for their children in this city. Among these children was a widow's son, an angelic seven year old who was, even at his young age, deeply devoted to his faith. At school he learned a song in Latin, the Alma redemptoris, and asked the meaning of it. According to an older student, this song was meant to praise the Virgin Mary. As he was walking home from school one day singing this song, he provoked the anger of the Jews of the city, whose hearts were possessed by Satan. They hired a murderer who slit the boys' throat and threw the body into a cesspool. The widow searched for her missing child, begging the Jews to tell her where her child might be found, but they refuse to help. When she found him, although his throat was slit, he began to sing the Alma redemptoris. The other Christians of the city rushed to the child and carried him to the abbey. The local provost cursed the Jews who knew of this murder and ordered their death by hanging. Before the child was buried, he began to speak. The Virgin Mary had placed a pearl on his tongue that allowed him to speak, despite his fatal wound, but when the pearl was removed he would finally pass on to heaven. The story ends with a lament for the young child and a curse on the Jews who perpetrated this crime.
Summary and Analysis of The Nun's Priest's Tale (The Canterbury Tales) Prologue to the Nun's Priest's Tale: The Knight interrupts the Monk's Tale, for as a man who has reached a certain estate, he does not like to hear tales of a man's fall from grace. He would rather hear of men who rise in esteem and status. The Host refuses to allow the Monk to continue, instead telling the Nun's Priest to tell his tale. The Nun's Priest's Tale: The Nun's Priest tells a tale of an old woman who had a small farm in which she kept animals, including a rooster named Chanticleer who was peerless in his crowing. Chanticleer had seven hens as his companions, the most honored of which was Pertelote.
In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Chaucer opens describing twenty-nine people who are going on a pilgrimage. Each person has a dissimilar personality that we can recognize from the way people behave today. He creates The Wife of Bath to stand out more compared to the other characters that are involved in these stories. In Chaucer’s “General Prologue,” the Wife of Bath was described as a woman who was intentionally described in an obvious way to provoke a shocking response. The Wife carries a lot of experience with things; she is a worldly person and has experience in the ways of the world in a sense of love and sex. Her clothes, physical features and references to her past are intentionally discussed by Chaucer causing the reader to wonder how well she is such a flamboyant and extravagant character. She shows off her clothes with evident pride, her face is wreathed in heavy cloth, her stockings are a fine scarlet color, and the leather in her shoed is soft and fresh. Her clothing symbolizes to the reader that she is not fearful or shy, and also shows off her expertise as a weaver.