Canterbury Tales
Chaucer begins in the prologue talking about how one spring he was making a pilgrimage to Canterbury along with other people who were mostly strangers but he managed to fit in. He basically said that he wanted to tell us about each of the twenty nine people in this pilgrimage group. He wanted to describe what they did for a living, who they were, and what they were wearing. He started by telling us about the Knight. Each character had a little something about them that was different from the others, but a lot of them shared one of the same seven deadly sins and their status in society.
In The Prologue, Chaucer talks about each pilgrim that will be on their way to Canterbury, a total of twenty nine characters are mentioned. …show more content…
The Wife of Bath is a very skilled cloth-maker, so we would assume that she would have more of a high quality cloth, however, the main piece of her Sunday wearing is her headdress that weighs ten pounds. Wearing such a headdress would obviously cause her more attention while attending church. We do know that her headdress was made of high quality because of this quotation from Canterbury Tales, “ful fyne weren of ground,” which does not explain why it is so heavy though. But, if you look in the Middle English dictionary, it says that the word “ground” in this context refers to “the background for ornamentation on a fabric”. Therefore, the Wife of Bath’s headdress was made of fine fabric, which was weighed down with some kind of ornamentation. ("Chaucer's Pilgrims and Their Clothing: Wife of Bath." Chaucer's Pilgrims and Their Clothing: Wife of Bath. University of Michigan, n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.) For a headdress to weigh a whole ten pounds, is a bit much, which is why Chaucer is probably making it into a hyperbole to show how the Wife of Bath wears the headdress to get attention on herself. She also wears a pair of scarlet hosen which makes it knows that the wife is somewhat associated with nobility. She is part of the middle class, not the higher class which includes nobility, but she has a decent amount of money so that she can dress as someone in the upper class …show more content…
“That every Sunday she had on her head. The fine hose that she wore were scarlet red And tightly laced, she had a nice new pair Of shoes. Her face was ruddy, bold and fair. She was a worthy woman all her life: At church door with five men she'd been a wife, Not counting all the company of her youth. (No need to treat that now, but it's the truth.)” (line 455-460). However, he talks about the doctor very highly. With the Physician, one of the most educated of the pilgrims, Chaucer provides us with an interesting contrast to the Clerk. While the Clerk's studies have been motivated by pure love of knowledge, to the detriment of the Clerk's financial situation, the Physician pursues his learning for financial gain. The comparison of these two highly-educated men allows us to weigh the consequences of both motivations for education. (Shmoop Editorial Team. "The Physician in The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue & Frame Story." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 20 Oct.
Chaucer begins in the prologue talking about how one spring he was making a pilgrimage to Canterbury along with other people who were mostly strangers but he managed to fit in. He basically said that he wanted to tell us about each of the twenty nine people in this pilgrimage group. He wanted to describe what they did for a living, who they were, and what they were wearing. He started by telling us about the Knight. Each character had a little something about them that was different from the others, but a lot of them shared one of the same seven deadly sins and their status in society.
In The Prologue, Chaucer talks about each pilgrim that will be on their way to Canterbury, a total of twenty nine characters are mentioned. …show more content…
The Wife of Bath is a very skilled cloth-maker, so we would assume that she would have more of a high quality cloth, however, the main piece of her Sunday wearing is her headdress that weighs ten pounds. Wearing such a headdress would obviously cause her more attention while attending church. We do know that her headdress was made of high quality because of this quotation from Canterbury Tales, “ful fyne weren of ground,” which does not explain why it is so heavy though. But, if you look in the Middle English dictionary, it says that the word “ground” in this context refers to “the background for ornamentation on a fabric”. Therefore, the Wife of Bath’s headdress was made of fine fabric, which was weighed down with some kind of ornamentation. ("Chaucer's Pilgrims and Their Clothing: Wife of Bath." Chaucer's Pilgrims and Their Clothing: Wife of Bath. University of Michigan, n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.) For a headdress to weigh a whole ten pounds, is a bit much, which is why Chaucer is probably making it into a hyperbole to show how the Wife of Bath wears the headdress to get attention on herself. She also wears a pair of scarlet hosen which makes it knows that the wife is somewhat associated with nobility. She is part of the middle class, not the higher class which includes nobility, but she has a decent amount of money so that she can dress as someone in the upper class …show more content…
“That every Sunday she had on her head. The fine hose that she wore were scarlet red And tightly laced, she had a nice new pair Of shoes. Her face was ruddy, bold and fair. She was a worthy woman all her life: At church door with five men she'd been a wife, Not counting all the company of her youth. (No need to treat that now, but it's the truth.)” (line 455-460). However, he talks about the doctor very highly. With the Physician, one of the most educated of the pilgrims, Chaucer provides us with an interesting contrast to the Clerk. While the Clerk's studies have been motivated by pure love of knowledge, to the detriment of the Clerk's financial situation, the Physician pursues his learning for financial gain. The comparison of these two highly-educated men allows us to weigh the consequences of both motivations for education. (Shmoop Editorial Team. "The Physician in The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue & Frame Story." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 20 Oct.