Canterbury Tales Review
Often times literature can be used as a historical reference, illustrating the ways of a life of a culture through stories set in a particular time period. The Canterbury Tales is no exception. Although the stories are fictional, they show social issues and provide a real view of life in medieval Europe. As a result, many of Geoffrey Chaucer's tales have similarities in theme and content. Among the many recurring motifs depicted in The Canterbury Tales is corruption in the church. Chaucer portrays the religious figures in his tales in a negative life by showing that these men who teach others not to sin, are sinful themselves. The Pardoner's Tale and The Summoner's Tale are two such stories that are comparable in their depiction of church's faults. The Pardoner's Tale is preceded by a prologue in which the pardoner preaches to the other pilgrims and repeats a sermon. Soon after his sermo
" Both travel the land gathering money from people, no matter how poor they are, in exchange for relics and salvation. As a result of their unconditional avarice, the pardoner and friar are financially well off despite the fact that clergy at that time were expected to live a life of poverty. "I will have money, wool, and cheese, and wheat, though it be given by the poorest page, to by the poorest widow in village, and though her children perish of famine" (Prologue). Heartless and greedy, the friar tells Thomas that the reasons for his misfortunes lie in that fact that he has given little to the church, revealing his true intentions for coming to visit Thomas. But that is not my principal intent. The Summoner's Tale describes a Friar who, much like the pardoner, is guilty of greed. The tale tells the story of a Friar who goes from house to house taking money and food from charitable patrons of the church. The Pardoner's Tale itself is the story of three wayward young men who discover gold under a tree. It is readily apparent that the pardoner and friar are unconcerned about educating people about the sins of man or upholding the values held by the church but rather care only about increasing their own wealth. In the Summoner's Tale the narrator shows that the friar would take money from anybody, even a sick man who had lost his son just weeks before. With scrip and pointed stuff uplifted high he would from house to house to poke and pry and be a little meal and cheese, or corn. The Friar travels to the house of Thomas, a man who is severely ill and whose son had recently died. " This is an example of the Summoner's greed depicted in the tales. The friar had acquired so many things through his travels that he had to have a friend help him carry it all.
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