Essay about Relationships in Geoffrey Chaucers The...

Throughout literature, deep relationships can often be discovered between a story and the author who writes it. Relationships can also be found in stories about a husband and wife. In Geoffrey Chaucers The Canterbury Tales many of the characters make this idea apparent with the stories they tell. In â€Å"The Pardoner’s Tale†, a distinct relationship can be made between the character of the Pardoner and his tale of three friends. Also, the Wife in â€Å"The Wife of Bath’s Tale† boldly declares her relationship towards her husband. Throughout â€Å"The Pardoner’s Tale†, the main character teaches about greed, gambling, desecration, and drinking, but in the beginning he admits to committing these sins himself. One of the portrayals of hypocrisy, in the†¦show more content†¦The irony of the Pardoner is based on his hypocritical actions. The fact that he does not care about the souls of those he has tricked, says a lot about his character. Near the end of his tale, the friends begin to reveal their true personality. All three of them turn on each other trying to steal the treasure for themselves. All of the trust, which they had promised, was a lie and no loyalty remained. The supposed faithful â€Å"friends† display their true cruelty and expose their hypocrisy in relation to the Pardoners character. One main theme in â€Å"The Wife of Bath’s Tale† is female dominance and equality. In the tale, the wife portrays her dominance through her own experience. For example, the image of the whip sets her role as master, and she tells everyone that she is the head of her household. Despite her claim that experience is her sole power, the Wife of Bath evidently feels the need to create her authority in a more scholarly manner. She mimics the habits of the scholars and churchmen by supporting her claims with quotations from antique works and scripture. The Wife of Bath apparently attempts to emphasize female dominance over men. She contradicts many of the harsh customs and declares her own haughty assessment of women’s function in society and in relationships. In the story, Chaucer explains that what women want is sovereignty over their husbands. According to the tale, women desire to be treated as masters over their love. The story also suggests thatShow MoreRelatedWomen s Liberty Through Literature1105 Words   |  5 Pages Women’s Liberty Through Literature Kendall N. Player English 4 AP Literature Mrs. Johnson  The role of women in society has been well documented through world literature. Works such as The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, Hamlet by William Shakespeare,The Education of Women by Daniel Defoe, and A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen. These works come from a wide variety of time periods, they range from the middle ages to the modern era, where the first was published around 900 years before the lastRead MoreSex in The Canterbury Tales Essay937 Words   |  4 Pages Geoffrey Chaucer uses sex as a manipulative instrument in The Canterbury Tales. Portraying sex as a power that women exert over men rather than the marital bond of â€Å"making love† makes evident Chaucer’s skewed views of love and marriage with underlying tones of misogyny. He expresses these views throughout the work, however, the theme of love and sex is most evident in the sub-stories of The Wife of Bath and The Miller’s Tale. Chaucer breaks the topic of sex into two basic parts: carnality and romanticismRead MoreChaucers The Canterbury Tales1381 Words   |  6 PagesThe Canterbury Tales serves as a moral manual in the Middle Ages. In the tales, Geoffrey Chaucer portrays the problems of the society. 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Like that of â€Å"The Miller’s Tale,† and â€Å"The Merchant’s Tale.† Chaucer utilizes these tales to display one specific immoral act, which is sexual sinRead MoreGeoffrey Chaucers Experiences In the Canterbury Tales Essay1130 Words   |  5 PagesIn the Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer describes the journeys and life lessons of thirty fictitious pilgrims. Scholars explain that only one of the thirty pilgrims was indeed Chaucer, but other characters in the Canterbury Tales represent the struggles of Chaucer as well. Although the pilgrims’ tales were pretend, they were based on actual events that Chaucer experienced throughout his lifetime. He represents his own insecurities and flaws throughout the array of the characters’ tales. SituationRead MoreThe Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer1582 Words   |  7 Pages Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the Canterbury tales a collection of short tales in the 14th century. The compilation of stories are told by different characters within the narrative as part of a game proposed by the host. Each individual must tell two stories on their journey and two stories on their way back. Each story tells some aspects of English life during the time and often added satire like qualities to the English life. In particular Chaucer often tells stories with elements of the relationshipRead MoreThe Use Of Satire In The Canterbury Tales By Geoffrey Chaucer1406 Words   |  6 Pages Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales, using his characters as the mouthpiece for his iconoclastic views. Chaucer had serious issues with the hypocrisy of the church as well as, many other sacred institutions. The only reason that Chaucer was not exiled or even imprisoned for his views is the way in which he exposed them. Through the allegorical meanings of this text and Chaucer’s cla im that he is simply retelling the events of his pilgrimage to Canterbury as it occurred, Chaucer is savedRead MoreThe Marriage Debate in The Canterbury Tales Essay613 Words   |  3 PagesThe Cost of Marriage In Geoffrey Chaucers work, The Canterbury Tales, many travelers gather together to begin a pilgrimage. During their quest, each of the pilgrims proceed to tell a tale to entertain the group. From these stories arise four different tales, in which Chaucer uses to examine the concept of marriage and the problems that arise from this bonding of two people. In the tales of The Franklin, The Clerk, The Wife of Bath, and The Merchant, marriage is debated and examinedRead MoreEssay on Comparing the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale569 Words   |  3 PagesIn Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem The Canterbury Tales a young Chaucer tells of the people he meets on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Thomas Beckett in Canterbury. One of the most vivacious characters on the pilgrimage is The Wife of Bath. Both the Wife of Bath’s prologue and tale share a common theme of a woman’s control in a relationship with a man. The Wife of Bath and the old hag in her tale share a simila r perspective on what women want most in life. In the prologue and tale the reader is exposedRead MoreGeoffrey Chaucer Stance on Feminism1254 Words   |  6 Pages The investigation into whether or not Geoffrey Chaucer was ahead of his time in terms of his views on feminism has been up for debate for hundreds of years. The Wife of Bath’s Prologue is just one solitary example of the complicated nature of Chaucer’s belief system. On the one hand, we have many strong female characters that despite still being extremely dependant on the men in their lives, know what they want out of life. From a contrasting point of view, readers see a group of men, including