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Humanity In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

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The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories that are verbally created as the Host requests that each pilgrim tell a story on the journey to Canterbury. Although this ultimately leads to conflict amongst the pilgrims, the entire spectrum of human personalities is presented by showing each character's qualities, flaws, and hypocrisy. In order to show multiple layers of perspectives, including that of the pilgrims, Chaucer as the narrator, and Chaucer as the writer, The Canterbury Tales is written as a frame narrative. The use of a frame narrative allows Chaucer to convey his own values in humanity by observing and reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of human nature.
In this specific part of The Canterbury Tales, The Friar’s Prologue …show more content…

The narrator describes the friar as “that excellent limiter, the good friar” in The Friar’s Prologue. In actuality this is communicated in jest because the profession of the friar has similar faults as that of the summoner. Later the summoner tells of a friar who erases the names of donors from his tables as soon as they were out of sight. This shows that the way the system worked was corrupt. Chaucer is able to demonstrate that the medieval church was not without its own faults and sins. The dialogue between the friar and the summoner represents Chaucer’s reaction to the abuses of clergy in the church and the stereotypes about them. Also questioned is the role of authority. Higher clergy were relentless in acquiring money, using a summoner as the brute force in order to collect it. The summoner is compared to the devil and ironically has less “honor.” This is because the summoner appears to be more relentless in his methods of extortion and does not pay attention to people’s word. This shows Chaucer’s belief in the importance of having a conscience and repenting sins. It is also a lesson that people can go to Hell if they are like the summoner and lead an evil life by not feeling sorry for

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