The Canterbury Tales: The Humanity of The Wife of Bath and The Pardoner

Essay by willylindsayUniversity, Bachelor's May 2004

download word file, 7 pages 4.3

Chaucer's Wife of Bath and his Pardoner are by far the most analysed, critiqued and admired of all his characters. Even for the Miller, for his ridiculous and entertaining tale, is there not as much discussion and general literary contributions, than for these two characters. And that is exactly why - they are characters. One of the reasons as to why Chaucer has survived and been appreciated all these many years, is the fact that he gave a person to a tale. Traditionally, before Chaucer made this evolutionary text, stories where repeated for their moral and lesson. Chaucer put behind these well-known tales, a voice to tell and influence the events therein. Each story has been heard before, but not in such a way as this. The host is holding a competition to see who can tell the best tale, giving a personal lisence to each of his company to experiment as they know how.

The Knight tells his tale as only he can, with such high rhetoric and bountiful descriptions of the main characters. He bores us with his nobility and his priviledged ability. The Miller, who is drunk, follows the Knight's tale with his slapstick comedy, drawing clever parallels between his preceder's tale and his own. It is probably the most amusing tale in the collection, but does not lend itself to as vast a study as the Wife of Bath and the Pardoner. The reason for this is very simple and has been stated before. They are not simply voices that influence their stories from their professions, they are literary characters in their own right, exclusive of their tales. If one took all the tales away from the Cantebury Tales, we would find these two special people sitting, talking in the bar - and they would...