The Canterbury Tales is an unfinished work on which author Jeffrey Chaucer worked until his death. The Canterbury Tales is composed of some passages which are sometimes controversial. Nevertheless, it is generally accepted that the text is divided into ten fragments, the first of which begins with the General Prologue, and the last one ends with Chaucer’s Abdication. Pilgrims do not reflect the entire modern English society and are not endowed with deep characters – each of them is an exemplary embodiment of a particular profession, that is, a social role. The author uses the prologue to outline the main problems of the Middle Ages and later, in the stories of each hero, to ridicule them.
The prologue takes place in the middle of spring, like the birth of a new life, which prompts the pilgrims to travel. In the prologue of fairy tales, Chaucer uses a subtle choice of words and implicit action in the plot to symbolize the power of the lower classes when it comes to hierarchy. While the narrator should be different from the author himself, readers can see that many characters are respected and written in mannerisms that reflect Chaucer’s honest opinion. The narrator describes the pilgrims who will later share their stories in the prologue. The author focuses on the social status of each hero, and already from the descriptions, it becomes clear that the pilgrimage for almost all of them is not a spiritual mission but a holiday (Chaucer and Coghill 12). Representatives of the Catholic Church often abuse their position, try to annoy others with their stories, and seem to be more devoid of high spiritual feelings than representatives of other professions (Chaucer and Coghill 33). It is worth noting that Chaucer himself, throughout his life, remained loyal to the aristocracy, and for many years he studied the entire internal structure of the upper strata of society without referring to them.
Work Cited
Chaucer, Geoffrey, and Nevill Coghill. The Canterbury Tales. Penguin Books, 2003.