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The Summoner In The Canterbury Tales

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In “The Prologue”, from The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, it describes many pilgrims from the church who are corrupt. None of the pilgrims seem to notice they’re wrong in the way they do things. The pilgrims are on a journey to Canterbury to see the Shrine. Some of them were going on this this journey for religious purposes while many were going on it for selfish reasons. The most corrupt member of the church that was attending this journey was the Summoner. To start off with, the Summoner was from the religious class. His job in the church house was to issue summons to those who broke the rules of the church. Although, he worked for the church, he was a hypocrite. The Summoner did not do his job correctly. He let many members of the church get away with breaking the rules of the church if they gave him gifts such as red wine or riches. None of these gifts went to the church, but to the …show more content…

The reason that many were going was to go to a holy place called the Shrine. However, the reason the Summoner was going was not for religious purposes, but for his own selfish reasons. The Summoner enjoyed lust which he used to blackmail the women with their secrets for it. “The Prologue” states, “He knew their secrets, they did what he said” (l. 653), this proves that the Summoner blackmails women. The Summoner took advantage of going on this journey to meet new woman. Using women out of evil made the Summoner very corrupt. If he had done his job correctly to do for the church, this journey he was making would have only been based on God and making sure his people were doing as they should be. Instead of the Summoner doing what the church expected of him, he broke many rules of the church. He did not go on to Canterbury for the right reasons, but for selfish ones. The Summoner deserved what he gave to the other members of the church for breaking the rules of the church, a

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