The Representation Of God In Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

Improved Essays
On their journey to find death, the three brothers come across an infinitely old man. They ask him for directions to death, and he tells them of a tree where he had last come into contact with death. After the brother’s part ways with him, he is never mentioned again in this tale or in any of the others told throughout the overall text. The presence of old men in literature are often portrayed as wise, god-like, or as a magician who is very wise. However, the man that Chaucer writes about appears to be incredibly old which may lead one to believe that this man is God, or a God-like figure walking the earth. But, if the man is God or a representation of God, why would he lead them to their deaths? Does this figure of God only exist to tell the brothers where death can be found? The answer to this questions is an explicit no. It would make no sense for the God portrayed in Christianity to tell the brothers the whereabouts of a man or idea that would end their lives. With this, the idea that God or Jesus as the old man can be set aside. Moreover, if one were to identify him, they would have to take into account his old and weary figure and that he mentions a “pilgrimage”. When looking at characters who embark on pilgrimages and wander the world for long amounts of time without dying, the list isn’t necessarily long. One of the first to be given the punishment of wandering the earth can be found in Cain, the first son of Adam and Eve. …show more content…
14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    There are a quite a few short stories, novels,and poetry that uses things to represent something else. This is also known as symbolism. Stories and novels such as “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston, “The Most dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, and “ The Giver” by Lois Lowry. These novels consist a great deal of symbols. Also, these symbols may have more than one meaning to them.…

    • 474 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout the entire book, we walk in Janie’s shoes as she explores and discovers what love truly is. She always desired independence, and wanted to discover the world herself. In the story, we listen as Janie grows wiser and matures as a woman after each of her marriages. Her first experience with marriage wasn't even her choice, her grandma was the one that picked a man for her. His name was Logan Killicks.…

    • 1667 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In almost every book written, there has always been someone searching for something Whether it be a lost object, a lost person, or something else that is important to them, it always drives them into action and sends them off on a quest. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the thing that drives Janie into action is her search for her true self. Ever since that fateful afternoon underneath the pear tree, Janie searched for herself and it has driven her into different situations where each moment has brought her closer to her true form in one way or another. On Janie’s way to find her true self, Janie marries three people: Logan Killicks, Joe Starks, and Vergible Woods, also known as Tea Cake. These three men play a vital role in Janie’s life and…

    • 1649 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the novel,"Their Eyes were Watching God," by Zora Neale Hurston, a dilemma shook young Janie's life in the awkwardest of ways. Torn between, thoughts of true love and the reality of marriage, the decision consumed her mind. Lost in the meadows of childhood, Janie's surroundings begin to change as she enters the "coming of age" part of her life. The meadows fall as a path becomes clear and Janie takes her chance. Leaping towards,"flower dust" and "springtime (sprinklings)"…

    • 649 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Their Eyes Were Watching God, a novel written by Zora Neale Hurston, depicts the tumultuous tale of Janie, a black woman living in the South, and her love affairs and journey of self-realization. Due to Hurston’s culturally rich scenes and choice of narration, using dialect traditional of southern black, this classic novel can be interpreted as a folktale. Folktales, defined as “… tale[s] or… legend[s] originating and traditional among a people or folk, especially… forming part of the oral tradition of the common people” (dictionary.com), were traditionally passed down in older African American communities in the context of this novel. This was especially prevalent in the South, where slavery was prominent and there were still freed slaves…

    • 678 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Road to Peace The novel Their Eyes Were Watching God revolves around the story of Janie, a woman in search of love, and the resolution of that journey. The novel explores her development as a person, and the peace of mind that follows her quest. Hurston ends the novel with Janie’s spiritual soundness: “here was peace”. Through various details, both major and minor, Hurston manipulates Janie’s experiences and development to bring her to the content conclusion.…

    • 1184 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    From the book written by author Neale Hurston, “Their eyes were watching God”, the author numerous times have used a main character named Janie to illustrate a universal message to readers of what it would take to be an independent person. And throughout the novel readers begin to notice how Janie as a person growing up have always questioned her identity alongside with society's expedition of how a woman should behave. And by living up to her mother's expectations, Janie has lost her voice and have forgotten about what it would take to be individually free which predominantly suggest that by not breaking the traditional values of society, independence may never be achieved. By the time Janie was married she had already lost her voice. And…

    • 715 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Analysis Of Chrysostom

    • 1552 Words
    • 7 Pages

    4.1 The Replacement Theory and the Anti-Semitism All of the interpreters, whom I examine in this article (with the exception of the last), regarded the first invited guests as the Jewish nation and the second invited guests as Gentiles. They all believed that the destruction of the city of the first guests represents the devastation of Jerusalem, which is God’s judgment on Jews. Chrysostom asserted that God foreknows the Jews’ refusals of Christ. He first sent his prophets and Christ to them in order to stop their mouths. Now they have no excuse to blame God for the expulsion.…

    • 1552 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The movie “A Knight’s Tale” is loosely based on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Both of these art works give good insight on the social classes of the medieval era. The two artworks highlight the Knight’s social class as well as the peasant social class. The Knight is the highest rank in his respected social class, while the peasant is average in their social class. The society was set up in such a manner that people were unable to change their social standards.…

    • 767 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Their Eyes Were Watching God and in Of Mice and Men, both novels have, in a sense, tragic endings. However, in Of Mice and Men, the ending has a greater deadly conclusion. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie has the ever present dream of achieving her hopes of a equally happy and mutually respectful marriage. Janie, in a way, achieves her dream of happiness, even though her husband, Tea Cake, is no longer present, yet she finds a sense of peace by the ending of the novel. In Of Mice and Men, George and Lennie also aspire to fulfill their dreams of a country house, isolated from the horrors of society that lets them lead their lives as they want.…

    • 1033 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Chaucer and The Church In Geoggrey Chaucer’s, The Canterbury Tales, 29 people are on a pilgrimage to Canterbury to worship the shrine of the martyr Saint Thomas Becket. One of these pilgrims is a Wife of Bath. She has a unique story; she has wedded five different men. During this time, (The Medieval Times) The Church was one of the most powerful institutions in Europe.…

    • 778 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This may have come from their drunken state at the time, but to think they are more powerful than death leads them to vast misfortune. Even when they meet the old man they are rude to him. The brothers exclaim how he is ancient and how he should be ready to die. They show him how young and fit they are saying that this is how they could beat death. The Pardoner demonstrates his pride when he mentions getting "silver things" from just about everyone when he preaches.…

    • 1205 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Often in sermons pastors persuade their audience to behave in a spiritual or moral fashion. Such is the case in "the sinners of an angry god" by Edwards, Jonathan where he educate the sinners that god can destroy sinners with ease if they do not repent. Edwards wanted to impact his audience by appealing to their fears, pity, and vanity. Edwards had a tremendous impact on his puritan audience because of his use of cautionary tone, clear imagery, and symbolic figurative language. To begin, the tone of the story is cautionary.…

    • 461 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The purpose of Cassirer’s writing of “The Myth of the State” is to clarify how myth was able to capture great significance in the political discourse and thought from Europe and particularly from Germany in the first half of the twentieth century. Needless to say, this occurrence was not an accidental one according to Cassirer. He affirms that myth is not a clump of mistakes, but a way of thinking and symbolizing which remains at the origin of human culture. Cassirer’s own conclusion on myth may be summarized as follows: as opposed to art and science which gives us a unity of intuition and thought, “religion and myth gives us a unity of feeling. It begins with the awareness of the universality and fundamental identity of life” (37).…

    • 812 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gulliver’s Travels is a story about a middle-aged lawyer named Lemuel Gulliver who goes on four fantastical adventures after being in a shipwreck. Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin, Ireland on November 30th, 1667. At the age of fourteen he attended Trinity College, graduating in seven years before returning to Ireland to be the chaplain to the Earl of Berkeley. In 1694, when he started his writing career, he began to write political and religious satires. He was very loyal to the church and because of this he had conflicts with the Whig party, which he had supported for a long time.…

    • 740 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays