Geoffrey Chaucer Satire Analysis

Chaucer characterizes The Wife of Bath as controlling and powerful. The Wife of Bath was a complete contradiction of the typical female, during this time. The average woman was submissive and reserved. Whereas, The Wife of Bath possessed character traits that one would associate with men. Chaucer emphasizes this trait by describing her in such ways one would describe a man.

Throughout The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer often writes in a satirical way in order to really say what he wants without bluntly stating it. The part of the book that the satirical writing is

The pardoner’s integrity does affect the validity of the lesson he preaches, because of how evil and wrong his morals are. His lesson is greed is the root of all evil, and he proves this lesson well by being evil because how greedy and deceiving he is. He shows how greedy he is by selling people fake relics for money. Here, he explains how he tricks people in devious ways: “And always has been, since I learnt the game, / Old as the hills and fresher than the grass” (Chaucer 241). The word “game” means how he plays people into buying into his trickey and fake relics by persuading innocent people.

[attention getter]. Geoffrey Chaucer, in his novel The Canterbury Tales, deals with many tales of medieval life and morals. The writing follows a large group of pilgrims who have all been challenged to tell their best tale, one that teaches a valuable lesson, on the journey to Canterbury. Two of the stories told, “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”, make their points in very notable ways. The Pardoner tells a story of three men who come to pay for indulging in the sin of greed, while the Wife of Bath recounts a story of questionable morality involving a knight struggling for redemption after breaking his code of honor.

Washington Irving wrote the short story “The Devil and Tom Walker”. In “The Devil and Tom Walker”, he uses many symbols and images throughout the story. The narrator in the story is Geoffrey, and it takes place in 1727 Boston, Massachusetts- Charles Bay. Tom Walker is the main character in this short story, and is the protagonist. Tom rarely spends money even when he should.

Geoffrey Chaucer, an English poet during the middle ages, wrote The Canterbury Tale’s Wife of Bath; he was born from a humble middle-class family and climbed his way up through the aristocracy. The Wife of Bath main protagonist is molded by a sexist culture of her times. My goal with this paper is to shed light on The Wife of Bath’s main character. A story of a smart, strong-willed woman who manipulates her way to financial and personal independence, is she a feminist or a smart and scheming woman?

Geoffrey Chaucer was a British Author born in the early 1300’s he was born somewhere in London but no one knows what month and day he was born, because there was no one old enough to vouch about his birthdate to the exact day. He was born into a unwealthy family, his father was a well known and famous wine merchant. That is what made Chaucer and his mom and dad a well talked about family. While his mother Agnes Copton just stayed at home while Chaucer’s father brung in all the money to support his wife and his only son. Agnes Copton came from a rich family; what started out as a small family turned into a bigger one eventually.

In the Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer utilizes the immoral character of the Pardoner to tell the utmost moral tale through satirical devices, presenting the true greed and hypocrisy that runs throughout the Church, regardless of it attempt to cover it. Chaucer introduces the hypocrisy within the Church through the characterization of the Pardoner, as he is explained to be a man with, “flattery and equal japes./He made the parson and the rest his apes” (“General Prologue” 607-608). “Japes” are tricks, alluding to the Pardoner’s relics, as they are fake; yet, the Pardoner still sells these relics to the Church members as genuine treasures. This creates dramatic irony, because the character of the Church body is unaware of the situation bestowed

Throughout her introduction of the tale, and the story itself, we see the Wife of Bath as an experienced, intellectual woman, who despite living in a world of patriarchal power, provides for herself financially, emotionally, and physically. As a feminist icon, she confronts serious social issues that illustrate the subjugation women faced. During her prologue and her tale, it is very clear that the Wife of Bath is proud and not ashamed of her sexuality. She views sex as a good ideal, and argues it, using references from the Bible, that God’s intentions

Chaucer also uses satire in a more comical way to illustrate how women can’t keep a secret. The Wife of Bath reveals this trait when she says “by heaven, we women can’t conceal a thing” (Chaucer 341), mocking the suggestion that women have an inability to keep a secret. Chaucer also makes fun of the knight’s condition using the irony of women being incapable of keeping a secret as the only thing that can save him. Mocking women and their incapability to not share private information only further reveals Chaucer’s satire.

In Chaucer’s story The Canterbury Tales, he wrote about how he felt what the society was like for him and what people did. You had the poor and the rich but they were opposite of each other. To me you could see that the made up characters are like some of the people in our society today. Chaucer use of satire to shine a light on how he felt about the society and what was wrong with the people in the upper towards the lower class. One example from the text is the Parson who is a generous, godly, and a poor man.

Perks of Sarcasm (Chaucer 's Use of Satire to Reach Intended Audience) Geoffrey Chaucer, also known as, “The Father of English Literature,” uses satire in his stories to influence his intended audience. Satire is the use of humor or irony to reveal a person 's stupidity. Considering Chaucer 's stories are legendary, he never fails to through some satire into his writing. With that being said, using it while writing a story is one of the most effective ways of writing.

Geoffrey Chaucer’s satirical collection of stories called The Canterbury Tales, develops an insight of his criticism for the Catholic Church members during the medieval period. During the time period, the Catholic Church could be considered as the head of the society. The church held power over education, politics, economy, as well as the everyday lives of the citizens. Fear of excommunication kept the people from arguing with the ideas of the church. Some members of the church used this power to influence others to follow the rules of Catholicism; however there was a growing number of church members who were corrupt.

Not only her thoughts and beliefs show her as a modern character but the actions she partakes in and the way she is written by the author suggest her to be more open about herself rather than staying confined to normal societal gender roles and norms. Chaucer’s focus on the wife of bath involves painting her face and body in a sexually suggestive manner (The Historical Perception of the Wife of Bath). By him doing this he is pointing out the suggestive actions she takes by just being herself, since even her body is considered sexual. Allison is a woman who believes in great power for herself “she is a strong willed women who herself gets what she wants when she wants it.” (The Historical Perception of the Wife of Bath)

For Chaucer's time, he took his uncivilized wild thinking to the extreme. Chaucer mainly wrote in a uniform rhyming end scheme couplet. For a master-mind writer like Chaucer, it was daring for him to write about many things that the church frowned upon, because during his time, the church was the main power. This may have caused Chaucer to gain as much popularity as he did because it was the wild and free thinking that Henry David Thoreau believes attracts readers. Chaucer uses end rhyme scheme, wild and free penmanship, and references to the bible, which most likely led to the praise of his pen.