Stereotypes In The Canterbury Tales

At first, The Canterbury Tales characters do seem odd; however, like any good story plot you have your heroes and villains, good guys and bad guys, or protagonists and antagonists. The only different with this story is the names, truthfully. The stereotypes still exist – they just don’t disappear – take for instance The Pardoner. People like the Pardoner still have a very prominent place in society, although they appear in various forms – bankers, crooks, hustlers, etc. – the reality is they still exist. People every day are scammed by unsuspecting criminals just looking for money because they’re driven by greed, I.e., Bernie Madoff, Jordan Belfort, Jeff Skilling, and many more; all of which were trusted by someone along the way – and that’s
just from the point view of the Pardoner. Just think of the Squire, sound familiar? A teenager who only cares about their appearance and daydreams about love? Yeah, that’s a broken record if I’ve ever heard and sadly mentality still exists and has prominent role in today’s society. Ultimately, Chaucer’s just writing about life stereotypes and he’s just as much writing about the people back then as he’s writing about the people in modern day.

Stories undoubtedly have an impact on the perception of someone’s character; stories use the culmination of raw emotion and expression, arising different emotions inside the stories audience. Stories interpret what happened in the past and puts it in the spotlight – whether good or bad – and provides a younger audience with an oral or written story from history. Throughout the Tale Chaucer uses physical characteristics to describe multiple characters and has a huge impact on the what the audience thinks of the character.