The Canterbury Tales as a Means to Argue for Church Reform Essay

Throughout the Canterbury Tales you get a sense that Geoffrey Chaucer is arguing for the reform of the medieval church. You can see this in the way he uses some of his characters to incite some of the negative values of the church into his book. He knew that this would be a risky move, so knowingly he used a frame narrative instead of a direct narrative or some other method of writing, in which the ideas in the literature would be linked and accredited to him and be used against him by the church. It was heresy to oppose the church in any way, and Im sure he still went though some trouble with the ideas in this book in relation to the church, although the safety net of the frame narrative he uses so well probably helped him. Two characters that illustrated his opposition to the church and how things were being done are the Pardoner and the Wife of Bath. By presenting two problems with the church, Chaucer uses both the Pardoner and the Wife of Bath to oppose the ideas of the church of his time.

First we can compare and contrast the two subjects, the Pardoner and the Wife of Bath. We will look at the similarities first. We can clearly see that the Pardoner and the Wife of Bath both present a criticism of the church of the time. The Pardoner wasnt exactly a respected position because they would guilt you into buying a relic from them to pardon your sins. Basically the criticism here is the whole idea of pedaling fake relics and convincing sinners to buy the fake relics. The Wife of Bath presents an idea that women of the world should have the same rights, powers, and privileges as men, which was a bad idea to do back then. The way frame narrative is used here is so that the characters and the narrator is talking about isnt directly Chaucers ideas. The second thing they have in common is that they both have no problem with their way of thinking. Some people have ideas and things they want to express but they do not want to for fear of being shunned, or back in Chaucers day, killed. Both the Pardoner and the Wife of Bath arent afraid to speak their minds, the Pardoner being honest with the audience about what exactly he does to get people to get them to buy his relics, and the Wife of Bath just basically blurts her ideas out. This wouldnt be such a problem today. Sure people might disagree with you, but that is about it. You can see that Chaucer fit right into the category of the type of person who hid some of his ideas because the world was resistant to change, so in this aspect, Chaucer differs quite a bit from his two pilgrims, who are quite similar on the issue.

The Pardoner represents a bad quality of the medieval church even though he himself is a person with bad qualities. The Pardoners work is basically to guilt people into buying his fake relics that he tells them are valuable history of the church. He uses tricks, then he mixes honesty and hypocrisy together with a story that has the direct intention of causing a guilt-trip in the audience that causes them to buy his fake relics. The Pardoner wasnt a well respected job in the time, but most believed that they had to buy his relics. The bad qualities of the Pardoner in the Canterbury Tales shine a revealing light on the profession of the Pardoner. The whole idea of having Pardoners was approved by the church, and thus you can see how Chaucer uses the Pardoner to criticize the church of his time, without leaving his frame narrative safety box.

On the other hand, the Wife of Bath is a person who reflects the good values of society. She studies the Bible regularly, or at least we can infer that she does from the text by her quotes from it, and she is very experienced in life. But to the early church, there is just one problem with her thought process. That problem is the idea that women should be in power just like men are, and should be given equal opportunities to succeed. This was greatly opposed in early times, because the woman was thought of as being filled with sin, all stemming from Eve giving Adam the apple and thus causing Adam, or man, to sin. And this wasnt just the view of some women, about 99.9% of all women in the history of the world, excluding royalties and nobilities. Men owned land and made decisions, and women cleaned house and raised children and that is just how it was. When Chaucer chose the Wife of Bath to be one of the pilgrims in his story about a group of people making a journey to the holy land, he put the ideas into her head that would make for a conflicting story, but also to present his ideas to the world.

Throughout the Canterbury Tales you get a sense of oppression between several of the people making the journey. Chaucer did a great job using a mixture of good and bad things to get the response he wanted from his audience, and did it with grandeur, as the Canterbury Tales is regarded as the first piece of classic mastered writing. He uses tricks with the Pardoner, newfound strength with the Wife of Bath, and a well executed frame narrative to deliver a message to the church of his time, as well as creating a timeless classic that draws the reader into the book every time it changes tales. The literary elements, along with help from a few characters from his story, present one of the best pieces of literature of all time.