Question

Chaucer's narrator describes characters from all walks of life and a range of social positions. Does the narrator appear to hold more favorable views of people from one class or background over another? Use at least three of the characters from the General Prologue in your response. Your answer should be at least 250 words.

Answer 1

The narrator's voice in the "Canterbury Tales" and "Troilus and Crisseyde" create the perfect settings to portray and depict medieval times lifestyle. He used pilgrimage as a way to bring people from different all classes, backgrounds and social contexts together and gave them the opportunity to interact with each other. Normally it would have been in extremely difficult for a noble knight and a miller to have some sort of social contact with each other, due to the fact of their social status because in this time period ranking would have been an impediment. All of the characters were able intermingle and to be able to listen to the marvelous tales that each one of them had to tell.

Before the Chaucer continues on into the tales, he first describes each of the circumstances and the current social rank of each one of the pilgrims. He describes each one in turn, starting with the highest status individuals, to him at least, to the lowest. Chaucer's voice, changes based on how he perceives each character. By just reading the script it is not always easy to determine the author's view point, but the narrator does appear to hold more favorable views of certain people who think similarly to him.

Answer 2

Yet before the narrator goes any further in the tale, he describes the circumstances and the social rank of each pilgrim. He describes each one in turn, starting with the highest status individuals. Chaucer's voice, in re-telling the tales as accurately as he can, entirely disappears into that of his characters, and thus the Tales operates almost like a drama. Where do Chaucer's writerly and narratorial voices end, and his characters' voices begin? This self-vanishing quality is key to the Tales, and perhaps explains why there is one pilgrim who is not described at all so far, but who is certainly on the pilgrimage - and he is the most fascinating, and the most important by far: a poet and statesman by the name of Geoffrey Chaucer.