Canterbury Tales essay
Canterbury Tales essay
Many of the religious characters in The Canterbury Tales represent character traits that are different from what is traditionally expected of them. This is because the Catholic Church, which ruled all of England, Ireland and most of Europe in the Fourteenth Century, was extremely wealthy. Extravagant cathedrals were built in every big city while the people suffered from poverty, disease and famine. The contrast between the wealth of the church and misery of the people was overwhelming. As a result, the characters in Chaucer's tales were portrayed as deceitful and greedy. In this essay, I will analyze the characteristics of religious officials from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, such as The Summoner, The Pardoner, The Knight and The Plowman.
The Summoner is a church official who brings people accused of violating church law to special courts set up by the church. “But well I know he lied in what he said; a curse should put a guilty man in dread, for curses kill, as shriving brings, salvation.”, this particular Summoner from “The Friar's Tale” is a deceitful, greedy person who uses his position as a church official to pressure innocent people into giving him “bribes” or money. He has a network of secret spies who report to him so that he can issue false summons and extort money from people. Instead of representing justice, he represents the exact opposite, injustice. Chaucer wrote this tale to show how greedy and corrupt church officials were during the Middle Ages.
In “The Pardoner’s Tale,” all the characters seek out Death, and the Pardoner personifies Death as a person, an evil person. During the fourteenth century, death was commonplace. The Black Plague was the biggest killer of all and nobody knew what caused it, therefore it was considered a mysterious and evil occurrence. All the characters in the tale who seek him out either die or kill each other when they get close to him. Chaucer uses the The Pardoner to make his point that evil
Many of the religious characters in The Canterbury Tales represent character traits that are different from what is traditionally expected of them. This is because the Catholic Church, which ruled all of England, Ireland and most of Europe in the Fourteenth Century, was extremely wealthy. Extravagant cathedrals were built in every big city while the people suffered from poverty, disease and famine. The contrast between the wealth of the church and misery of the people was overwhelming. As a result, the characters in Chaucer's tales were portrayed as deceitful and greedy. In this essay, I will analyze the characteristics of religious officials from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, such as The Summoner, The Pardoner, The Knight and The Plowman.
The Summoner is a church official who brings people accused of violating church law to special courts set up by the church. “But well I know he lied in what he said; a curse should put a guilty man in dread, for curses kill, as shriving brings, salvation.”, this particular Summoner from “The Friar's Tale” is a deceitful, greedy person who uses his position as a church official to pressure innocent people into giving him “bribes” or money. He has a network of secret spies who report to him so that he can issue false summons and extort money from people. Instead of representing justice, he represents the exact opposite, injustice. Chaucer wrote this tale to show how greedy and corrupt church officials were during the Middle Ages.
In “The Pardoner’s Tale,” all the characters seek out Death, and the Pardoner personifies Death as a person, an evil person. During the fourteenth century, death was commonplace. The Black Plague was the biggest killer of all and nobody knew what caused it, therefore it was considered a mysterious and evil occurrence. All the characters in the tale who seek him out either die or kill each other when they get close to him. Chaucer uses the The Pardoner to make his point that evil