The Values Of Morality In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

There is a misconstrued idea surrounding the character of an individual, especially one living in the Middle Ages. What many see is a fine line separating good and bad, making the overall view on the morality of the time a black and white matter. Yet upon closer examination it is revealed that the line is heavily blurred, leaving a vast area of grey in which both people who are good and bad, humble and vain, coexist. The characters found in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales translated by Nevill Coghill give who insight on such a grey area are the Friar, Pardoner, and the Parson.
The first notable character is the Friar. As a man belonging to the church, it is easy to believe that he would be a righteous character in Chaucer’s story. After all, it …show more content…
Due to his high position within the church, the friar has the ability to determine whether one goes to heaven or hell. He abuses his power to influence young, innocent girls to have sex with him. There was no form of birth control in the time of Chaucer. Evidently, young girls would become pregnant as a result. Since sex and pregnancy out of wedlock was greatly looked down upon, he would arrange marriages for the girl and pay her dowry so that she could get married without anyone detecting her pregnancy. The friar’s conduct is horrendously out of character for a man of his work. His obligation is to lead women to the word of God, not to tempt naive young girls to stray from the teachings of the bible. As a man of God, the friar has willingly committed his life to the church and spent most of his life studying the word of God. His lifelong dedication to the church makes his misconduct all the more disappointing because he is aware of his wrongdoing. The actions of the friar have an overwhelming impact on both the impregnated girls and the society. The girls that he made pregnant are now bound to a life-long lie of convincing their husband that the child is his. It is incredibly unchristian to lie and deceive. Furthermore, as more women had his children, there were more people with his genetics as generations went on. This leads to incest as people with the same genetics married each …show more content…
He viewed his religion as hierarchal, believing that he was above any other person. The purpose of a friar is to welcome all to the word of god and to bring them into the church regardless of the status of their health and wealth. Instead the Friar values them to be nothing more than dirt that taints the prestige of his position. The Friar’s cruel treatment of the poor reveals his corrupt nature. As a fraudulent man, the Friar casts the poor aside and surrounds himself with the wealthy to maintain the false appearance of being powerful and pure. However, he would make exceptions to those he would come in contact with and pray for if he could get money from it. The Friar’s actions are appalling. Jesus, the son of God and true savior, surrounded himself with the poor who had no money to their .names and lepers who were cast away from society because he loved them unconditionally. To declare that “it is not fitting with the dignity of his position” to surround himself with the sick and poor is the equivalent of saying that the Friar’s position is greater than that of Jesus. The Friar has an over inflated ego that is founded upon fallacies because in reality, the Friar is no greater in class than the beggars and the