The Use Of Satire In The Canterbury Tales

Chaucer has written his tales to explain real life situations that happens daily and his tales also teaches his readers that the same situation could happen to them and what he or she should be aware of when it comes to those types of scenarios. Geoffrey Chaucer includes in his tales the importance of love, greed, and friendships and how those feelings should not come together for

Perfection is Not for Mortals Is it possible to live on this planet without being a hypocrite? Is it unavoidable in a morally strict environment? In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer sets high moral standards for his pilgrims to follow. Neither the Pardoner, the Summoner, nor the Friar come close to the dignified spiritual example set by the Parson.

After the Knight begs Alisoun to tell him what women most desire and promises to do whatever she pleases for telling him, she asks the Knight to marry her. The Knight marries her with agony since she does not appear beautiful and come from nobility. In a hopeful tone, Alisoun, noticing her distressed husband begins: “Nobility is not tied to possessions…true nobility comes of grace. […] Whoever is content with his poverty I hold to be rich, even if he hasn’t a shirt.” (Chaucer 235-236)

The Wife of Bath tells the knight that every woman wants sovereignty or the right to make their own decisions. This saves his life but he has to accept her as a wife. After they marry the knight has such a hard time loving her since she is old and ugly. The Wife then lectures him on which he would rather have. An old ugly wife who is loyal and creates no problems or a young beautiful

In the Canterbury Tales, many texts use satire, including The Pardoner’s Prologue, The Pardoner’s Tale, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, and The Wife of Bath’s Tale. Chaucer will use satire to address three different sacred institutions. Chaucer first uses satire to address hypocrisy of the Church. In this tale, Chaucer’s audience is other religious people and yokels (unsophisticated people who will believe

Authors have long used satire to uncover and censure absurdity and debasement of an individual or the public by utilizing irony, silliness, distortion, or ridicule. It expects to enhance the individual and society by censuring its indiscretions and shortcomings. Various authors for example, Horace, swift, Juvenal and Twain, have applied satire in their works. Authors may use a parody of an individual, a nation, or even the whole world. The essence of satire is to produce a composition, which makes fun of an individual or the public to uncover its ineptitude and inadequacies.

He tells the readers that the knight was perfect, and he was kind. The knight was very humble and strong and brave. Chaucer is using character development in this tale. But then Chaucer kind of roasts and calls out the monk in the tale.

Chaucer Refutes Chaucer presents women in a light different to the long tradition of anti-feminist literature. In The wife of Bath’s tale, he presents women as grace givers; When the queen chose to show mercy rather than showing the knight to his death. Chaucer’s

In Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales there are many different types of personalities, all of the personalities symbolize something different in all. That story it self explains what a knight in the 14th century was supposed to look like and what they were supposed to symbolize. One of the most intricate Prologues in The Canterbury Tales is The Wife of Bath, for the reason being that the Wife seems as a prostitute. She admits to not only having five husbands, but to the fact she married them all for their money.

Geoffrey Chaucer, during the 1300s was a reformist, that being said, he used satire to change the views of the church he wished to reform. Chaucer had an agenda, this agenda was satire, directed to the yokels, the uneducated commoners. He targeted these people by writing in English. His writings were directed to these people because they would be those who were going to question the church. Natural instinct is to take what you know and share it, especially if the information is “juicy”.

Amid the numerous characters descriptively presented in Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales", there is one that separates himself from the rest, due to his personality and behavior. This is the character of the Parson, or priest, who constantly is basking in the positive light with which he is presented. The Parson is a man, both poor and rich; poor in income and belongings, but rich with holy thought and commitment. There are many examples of his unique persona presented by the author, which allows the reader to get a grasp of his purpose, use, and background.

Chaucer implies that men should be on equal ground with women by showing the Knight when he had more power than women, when the King had no control over the Knight’s punishment, and when the Knight acknowledges that he should honor women/old women. In the beginning of “The Wife of Bath's Tale”, the Knight was portrayed to have a lot of power, however it occurred only towards women. The Knight saw a maiden one day, “And of that

A narrative like this is one that has paved the way for all different kinds of literature to follow it. The story was a pioneer of the English language and can still be put to use today to analyze, and in The Friar’s case, satirize types of people and their typical characteristics. Chaucer does not explicitly express disdain for some Medieval values but his writing style is a testament to his feelings. Modern satire found in normal aspects of entertainment like Saturday Night Live and parody musician Weird Al might not exist without Geoffrey Chaucer, along with modern English

Satire is a genre of literature employed by writers that adopts criticism to expose individuals, governments, or society by using wit and humor. Its main purpose is to make possible the enhancement of humanity and its institutions by employing constructive criticism. Voltaire was a well-known figure of the Enlightenment that often used such satirist in his works, and sought an improvement of humanity and its institutions through his philosophical views. Candide is one of Voltaire’s most known works, a classic, which is filled with indignation at the evil of humanity and its institutions. With this classic, Voltaire directs his criticism against philosophical optimism, foolishness, religion, nobility, and the inhumanities of man against man.

The Knight is an essential character by which he is very authentic and he contrasts with many of the characters. It is important that Chaucer establishes a multitude of characters with various personalities and values in order to connect closer to the audience. Chaucer appears to have established the Knight to represent characteristics that are ideal during the time period when this piece was written, he “… In listés thrice, and ay slain his foe. This ilké worthy knight had been also…” participating in the crusades fighting for what was religiously ideal (Chaucer63-64).