Canterbury Tales
Introduction
The Canterbury tales are a set of short stories written by Geoffrey Chaucer in Middle English by the end of the 14th century. The Canterbury tales are a set of stories told in a pilgrimage to the pilgrims. This makes them very interesting as the analysis of each of the characters helps explore the culture and way of life in the 14th century. It also gives an insight into the feelings, emotions and social structure of the life of the English in the 14th century (Linne R. Mooney, 2006).
Character analysis
The four characters chosen for analysis include the knight, the wife of bath, the pardoner and the monk. These characters are described as a part of the pilgrimage and the narrator is also a part of the story. Each of these characters tell a tale and thus the whole of the Canterbury tales shapes up as a set of stories.
The Knight is the first pilgrim described by Chaucer. A knight has always been admired and presumed to be chivalrous, brave and serving the society. He has been established as a man of character and has been awarded as an admirable character. The knight has participated in more than 15 crusades and has a lot of experience which adds into the stories he narrates. This character presents the ideal Christian man of the 14th century. He has been described as a character of honour, pride and refinement all of which makes him a well mannered, gentle and yet larger than life a figure. In this way the knight is a character that has been idealized by the narrator (Linne R. Mooney, 2006).
The wife of bath is a character that has been explained as professionally promiscuous and an expert wife who has been married five times. This makes the character controversial and yet very interesting. Having been married so many times and having had several affairs, she has a sense of pleasure in marriage and sex. Moreover her interest lies in rich attire and dressing, all of which makes her an aspiring high society lady. But she is not among them because of her promiscuous nature. In this way she depicts the hypocrisy of the higher society of the 14th century where in men were allowed to be promiscuous but women were degraded and looked down upon when they were promiscuous. In this way the character of the wife of the bath depicts the journey that the lower and middle class women in the English society had to go through in order to live a life of riches (Trigg, Stephanie, 2002).
The next character is the pardoner. The pardoner is one who accepted donations for the church and pardoned people thus freeing them of guilt. But this character excelled in frauds and made profits for himself instead of the church. In this way he made enough money to travel the world. He has the gift of signing and preaching in a church. But at the same time he is a fraudster who even claims to have the veil of Virgin Mary. This character and his stories show how the 14th century people were gullible and were cheated in the name of religion. This happened to them several times and yet they took it as an easy means to reach to God. The clergy, the pardoner and the people in the church had power over the state and could be tempted to misuse it in order to live a life of respect and luxury. In this way they greatly benefitted out of their positions (Linne R., Mooney, 2006).
The monk, like other monks of that period lives in a monastery and was expected to devote his life to work and prayer. But this monk did not follow any of these rules and hunting and eating is all that he was interested in. This made it very contradictory that why was he a monk if he did not want to pray or did not even believe in it. He was not even dressed as a monk. He was instead dressed in large boots and fur and spoke and laugh very loudly. In this way he maintains the position of a monk for certain benefits like befriending young women and rich men who ever need his services. In this way though there is a lot of respect for each of the jobs or religious positions in the English society, there is also a need for them to maintain the sanctity of their positions which is not an easy task and this has led to several problems in the English society in the 14th century (Brewer, Charlotte, 1996). It depicts the levels of hypocrisy that existed in this society and the role that religion played. Moreover it also shows how it was essential for them to maintain their positions in order to survive and live a life of luxury and respect in the English society (Brewer, Charlotte, 1996). This has been a very important part of the English society.
Purpose of each character in the story
Each of the characters in the story has a very important purpose. The character of the knight shows chivalry and describes the ideal Christian man (Brewer, Charlotte, 1996). The character of the wife of the baths shows the condition and plight of the women in the English society as well as the kind of problems that being promiscuous led to. It also shows the strength and independence of the women in this society. The character of the pardoner shows the hypocrisy and the gullibility that existed in the 14th century in the English society. The character of the monk shows how free people were and yet how tied they remained to the social framework (Trigg, Stephanie, 2002). In this way all the four characters represent a different face of the English society and bring out the good and bad that existed in order to show how complex and showy the English society was. It also helps understand the stories in the context of this time period as well as form the context and time periodic understanding. It helps create stories around these characters and their way of life. It also helps depict the English society in an extremely interesting and realistic manner (Brewer, Charlotte, 1996).
Segment of society represented and reflection of language
The segment of society that has been mainly represented is the middle class of the English society where in there were high aspirations to possess the riches of the upper class and live a life of luxury. In this way the characters depict that they could take down to being promiscuous or cheating others in the name of religion in order to lead a life of luxury. They have also been able to show this through the usage of polished language as well as language that was used by the upper class (Brewer, Charlotte, 1996). In this way they depict the society as a mix of people who are not just respected, useful to the society as they serve the upper class but also as those who have their own ways of acquiring all the luxuries of life and wanting to fulfil their ambitions.
Conclusion
References
Linne R. Mooney, ‘Chaucer’s Scribe', Speculum, 81 (2006), 97–138.
Brewer, Charlotte. Editing Piers Plowman: The Evolution of the Text. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-521-34250-3 pp. 8–9
Trigg, Stephanie. Congenial Souls: Reading Chaucer from Medieval to Postmodern. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8166-3823-3 pp. 86s
