Preview

The Seven Deadly Sins In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
429 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Seven Deadly Sins In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales
In Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” he writes about many different character’s wrong doings accumulate around the Seven Deadly Sins and we can see that through the Wife of Bath’s tale.

Envy, the desire to have a quality, possession, or other desirable attribute belonging to someone else. The character The Wife of Bath always wants more she has had 5 husbands and her clothing has to be the up most precise material and class. Being in the best clothing was high on her priority list because she made clothes herself in the text it says “Her kerchiefs were of finely woven ground…sworn they weighed a good ten pounds” The Wife of Bath was so absorbed in herself, her vanity and her obsession of becoming more prestigious by marrying other men. Greed,

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Chaucer's Wife of Bath is one of the most amazing characters in English Literature. She is a strong, clever, independent woman who knows what she likes and usually gets it. She is lusty and not shy about it. She exposes and mocks misogyny in various ways, showing just how misogynistic medieval society was. However, although her strong willed nature and mockery of this patriarchy is apparent, as an audience we still remain confused, and discover aspects of her characteristics and journey, which show that perhaps she is still trapped in this ideal male dominated world. The Wife of Bath, Alison is represented as a rare and unique woman in the initial portrayal of her in the prologue, but at the end of her prologue, the Wife of Bath succumbs to the pressure of society, conforms and becomes the medieval wife.…

    • 1594 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Most people sometimes commit a sin without knowing they did it. There are seven deadly sins. This sins include pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed, and laziness. With this in mind, in the Miller's Tale Chaucer represents three out of the 7 sins. Chaucer shows the sins of lust, envy, and pride. He does this using imagery, characterization, and symbolism.…

    • 669 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The quote Joseph Campbell said of myths, but the same could be said of much of literature that “at the bottom of the abyss comes the voice of salvation. At the darkest moment comes the light.” This quote symbolizes at the worse of time comes salvation but when something good and new upraises a light of brilliance appears.…

    • 564 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    When writing, authors often know how they want to portray their characters, like if they want the person to stand for a greater meaning or to exist simply for ridicule. But some authors fall short of this mark and create wishy-washy figures that neither prove nor disprove an idea. This is the case with Chaucer and his portrayal of the Wife of Bath. The writer neither ridicules the woman for her multiple marriages nor does he use her to ridicule the gender norms of the time.…

    • 86 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer portrays 26 pilgrims with their virtues and vices. The Parson was a religiously devout and wise man, who despised cursing, so he charged for it. The Wife of Bath has the strength to stand up for herself over any male, but is very lustful and extreme in her beliefs of matriarchal dominance, to the point of being sexist.…

    • 511 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Wife of Bath is named “Alis” (326), which is short for Allison in modern English. Interestingly, she shares the name with the young wife in “The Miller’s Tale,” also from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. The name, then, represents a challenge to the patriarchy as much as the person does. Within “The Miller’s Tale,” Allison commits adultery and sees herself as above her older, but unarguably devoted husband. The Wife of Bath is also guilty of the same things. Her first “three men were goode… and olde” (203); thus, the character of Allison within “The Miller’s Tale” could likely be a younger embodiment of the Wife of Bath. However, Allison in the tale is portrayed in a way that makes her appear entirely cruel and unjustified in her actions. The Wife of Bath argues that she is justified in her actions because of the harsh inequalities created by the patriarchy. The difference between the two could be attributed to a situation where Chaucer’s own beliefs conflict with the beliefs of his characters.…

    • 1400 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the journey of Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer paints a vivid image of the medieval world. He brings forth three prominent concepts in the General Prologue, Pardoner's Prologue and Tale, and The Wife of Bath’s Tale. All tales satirically drenched with persuasive ideas, most would agree that his iconoclastic stories are dangerous for introducing aloud a different view on the church, gender relations and economic divisions. Creating doubt against the morals and true intentions of the church, bringing to light the inequality between genders and proposing a division between economic classes.…

    • 794 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, the host decides to come up with a story telling contest to help shorten the pilgrim’s journey to Canterbury. He states that the person who tells the most “instructive and amusing” tale will have supper at the cost of all the other pilgrims. Because Chaucer does not finish all the tales, there is no winner. However, the story that stands out the most and meets the criteria in the general prologue is the Wife of Bath.…

    • 748 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The wife of bath is a very confident woman who, in the prologue of her tale, talks about her five husbands. She seems very satisfied with her life and her choices; she is fulfilled regardless of the men she was married to. Even with all their deaths, she remains happy and independent. “But even now I will strive to be merry.” (Lines 478-479) The story she tells is about a knight who, after he rapes a young girl, is forced by the queen to find out what women desire the most. He finally discovers that what women want the most is to have sovereignty over their husbands. This goes directly along with the character of the wife of bath, who loved the control she had over her husbands more than anything else. The story proves that the answer to what women want the most is not just one static statement. What a person desires most in life depends on their own character and their own…

    • 830 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Pardoner

    • 721 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Each character in Chaucer’s story is based on one of the 7 deadly sins. The pardoner for example is the sin of greed. It is said that the host of their voyage claimed that the pardoner does secondary trade in relics or pieces of clothing, bones, and other objects once belonging to long departed saints. The pardoner claims to have Mary’s veil and a piece of St. Paul’s sail. After his tale the pardoner tried to sell these items to other pilgrims which then angers the host, and makes him question authority.…

    • 721 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Wife of Bath

    • 1467 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Throughout the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer carves stories made specifically for each character. Each tale is purposely created based upon the characters personality and profession. It can be safe to argue that the Wife of Bath is the only person on the journey that is suited to tell her tale. The Wife and the character in her tale both show concern about age. Also, the Wife is very good conniving, as is the old woman in her tale. Finally, the Wife and the old woman have controlling personalities, as they both play on the mentality of men.…

    • 1467 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    As represented through her lengthy prologue, much of what Chaucer wishes to expose to his audience is first introduced with the main character: the Wife Of Bath. The Wife Of Bath has the clear opinion that it is innate for women to deceive; she says “…God has given women by nature deceit, weeping, and spinning, as long as they live…” (313). Her power to manipulate those around her never fails; she is able to control her…

    • 1215 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Antigone Gender Roles

    • 637 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Chaucer's Canterbury Tales exemplifies the common element between the two works of women's attempts at attaining dominance over male figures. The first example of The Wife of Bath portraying this characteristic is in her Prologue. She confesses to the fact that she has had 5 husbands and that she uses various techniques in which she can control them (CT 103, 108). First of all, during the Middle Ages, being a virgin was highly prized and on the contrary, marriage was seen as inferior (CT 105-106). Also, her actions in her attempts to gain some type of control over her husbands refute the common stereotype of that time period that women should be meek and submissive to their husbands and men in…

    • 637 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sins In Dante's Inferno

    • 748 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the eyes of Dante Alighieri, there were many types of sins, and some were stronger than others. He believed that each sin had to be punished according to its level of strength of the offense towards God. In his poem, the Inferno, Dante includes three major levels of sin. One of these major sins is violence. Somebody once said that, “Life is difficult and then you die.” In the 7th circle located in the second inner circle one of the violent sins are those violent against themselves, which, as one can see in this quote are those who commit suicide.…

    • 748 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In Chausers "Canterbury Tales" he shows his dislike for certain characters by the way he describes their physical appearance and the way they act towards other people and the way they act in more personal aspects. Chaucer was not reprimanded for talking about people he did because he did it in the "literary state". This essay will focus on three different people he shows dislike for by the way he describes them.…

    • 409 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays