Greed And Hypocrisy In Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

The Pardoner in “Pardoner’s Tale” describes himself and his greed in saying “Let me briefly make my purpose plain; I preach for nothing but for greed of gain” (1-2) The pardoner would “beg from kirk to kirk and never do an honest job of work” (11-12) He preached that the people needed to give him money. Furthermore, he sold archetypes of Biblical artefacts as well to gain money cheating and lying to the people. But Chaucer also calls out the corrupt religious leaders in the “Wife of Bath’s Tale” when he says that “women can now go safely up and down by every bush or under every tree; there is no other incubus but he, So there is really no one else to hurt you and he will do no more than take your virtue.” (53-56) Which means that those with high class or friars would rape women that were alone. In both stories, Chaucer shows how corrupt the political leaders were in his

Jonathan Edwards argues to the sinning members of the congregation who have not yet accepted Christ that God’s penalties for their iniquities and lack of faith are ineludible to any mortal, and that no attempt to overthrow Him exists that is capable enough. To deliver his point to his audience, Edwards employs multiple rhetorical devices such as simile, polysyndeton, imagery, metaphor, and hyperbole. A simile is present at the beginning of his speech, when he tells the sinners that their “wickedness make[s] [them] as it were heavy as lead.” This connection magnifies how sin poisons one’s soul and causes them to sink into the depths of Hell. Edwards compares the consequence of sin to a concept that the parish can comprehend, provoking the

Hucks guardians, Widow Douglas and Miss Watson, practice Christianity. Huck and Jim on the other hand, believe in superstition: they look for signs for answers rather than God. They look for bad signs in everything; if anything bad happened to them they 're sure to have a sign that was leading to it. Though their superstitions are silly, they do have reason to believe bad things will happen to them: they live in a world where nature is dangerous and people act with hatred. Huck has a realization that the Christian “good’’ isn 't really “good”; they believe Huck will be condemned to hell for saving Jim from slavery.

Well respected Puritan MInister, Jonathan Edwards, in his sermon “ Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741), testifies about the consequences of unrepentant sinners. Edwards’ purpose is to express to the congregation the idea of refusing to repent leads to many punishments. He develops a dramatic tone in order to justify that non repentance is inescapable. Edwards emphasizes repetition, vivid metaphor, and extreme imagery in his use of pathos. In his sermon, Edwards uses repetition all throughout his message.

To fail, in faith, we must first succeed in doubt and fear. For Wormwood and Screwtape to succeed in their victim falling from faith they must first feed him full of fear and doubt. Throughout the Screwtape Letters, both demons try to bring their subject to worship their father by practicing tactics that lead and misdirect their human to fall from his faith in Christianity. Fear, doubt, and insecurity are the first and foremost tools of misdirection that Screwtape tries to employ Wormwood to exploit. “The immediate fear and suffering of the humans is a legitimate and pleasing refreshment for our myriads of toiling workers”.

In reality, Tartuffe is an ungodly hypocrite who uses his priest identity to mask his crimes and true identity. Madame Pernelle and Orgon trust in Tartuffe because he looks like the ideal priest. The appearance of institutional religion and its works revolved around Moliere

While not righteous or honorable in any traditional sense, the Pardoner argues that he is appropriate to preach against his personal vice of greed due to his understanding of the sin and that in the process he is able to truly assist others in the relinquishment of their faults. In correspondence, the Pardoner “preach for nothing but for greed of gain… from it, I can bring them to repent” (p. 243). The transparency of the Pardoner’s confessions is without a doubt

In “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” Johnathan Edwards uses rhetorical devices such as metaphors, similes and personifications. He uses these in order to scare his audience about Hell and to obey God and his message. In order to get people to follow his message and take his warnings, he uses tactics to scare people into in believing their unfortunate fates if they aren’t obedient to God and the Bible. Edwards uses descriptive images such as metaphors to compare his people to loathsome spiders. Edwards says that “The God that holds you over the pit of Hell, much as one holds a spider, or someone loathsome insect over the fire (Edwards Pg.

By using biblical allusions, he is relating to people of holy nature and those that have strayed from religion that would understand the “falling from grace” and the “thirst” remaining. The biblical references shift from beginning to end. In the beginning Soto uses the references to show his guilty sin, treating it as a dirty secret that fuels his “boredom for sin.” Then near then end the references become dark in the recollection of his sin. Relating to Adam and Eve being cast out because of tasting the forbidden fruit and being unable to contain their want in comparison to himself being overcome by “sweet” and the

“So that, thus it is that natural men are held in the hands of God, over the pit of hell,” (Edwards 79) Edwards’ motive in his sermon is to scare the less devoted Puritans into being “born again” and dedicating their life to the Father. “The use of this awful subject may be for awakening unconnected persons in this congregation.” (Edwards 80) Edwards believes man to all be self-righteous, unfaithful, and dubiously sinful creatures in desperate need of a savior. The only way that they can be spared being dropped into the pits of hell and graciously given eternal life is to repent of their transgressions and bow their knees to God in