Just as fishermen use bait to catch fish, politicians around the world use dirty cheap tricks such as bribery, to persuade the people to vote for them in elections. Politician’s sole purpose is to manipulate the people’s mind so they can obtain power over the society. The people, although educated, fall into the trap of the chaos and become the victims of that corruption. Similarly, Geoffrey Chaucer equates the church as the politician and the society as citizens in the “Friar’s Tale.” The Friar in his tale expounds the frauds of summoners, even though one of his fellow pilgrims is a summoner. Summoners are members of the clergy who call individuals to the church’s court. Chaucer writes “The Friar’s Tale” in an ironic way, demonstrating
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Although, that is not the situation in “The Friar’s Tale” prologue. In the tale’s prologue, the Friar says, “A summoner is a runner up and down / With summonses for fornication known, / And he is beaten well at each town's end” (Chaucer FP 19-21). The Friar chooses to narrate his story about the faults in a summoner because he wants to provide “an even broader context of contemporary criticism” (Bryant 181). The criticism that the Friar is “about the rapacity of church courts” seeking for profit from the people that are being tried at the court rather than providing them justice to help them gain money (Bryant 181). The Friar also had a “broader context” for criticising the summoner for his misconducts. The Friar used the summoners as a wall in between friars and corruption so that when a church official is blamed for corruption, the summoners will the one who the people will blame before the friars. In the middle of his prologue the Friar ensures that the pilgrims have a “pretentious sense of his social role;” (Lenaghan 282) since he mentions, “And leave authorities, in good God's name, / To preachers and to schools for clergymen” (Chaucer FP 12-13), to let the Wife of Bath know that she does not have the authority to punish the people who have done wrong …show more content…
The Friar, rather than just boldly stating his view on the summoner, utilizes the common people and the “other characters speak about him”(Passon 168). The Friar not only uses this technique to describe the faulty attitude that the summoner, who is in a higher position among the clergy men, has; but also to provide a distraction from the friars when people think of corruption. Later, as the Friar is continuing on with his tale, he describes how the summoner with the help of his assistants is able to get personal information about the society before the bishop can. Friar also notifies how the summoner is “a slyer rogue”, and how no other miscreant, in all of England matches the level of vilianism that the summoner has (Chaucer FT 58). In the midst of all these detailed descriptions, the Friar manages to notify how the summoner, “by his competent jurisdiction,” would use his “power to punish,” which was just to hoard as much money as possible from each individual who was illicitly caught by one of the summoner’s minions (Chaucer FT 55-56). The Friar providing all this minute detail about the turpitude that the summoner uses is important, yet the fact that the Friar is the narrator of this is highly “ironic because the friar himself” is known for troubling people to gain money off of them (Lenaghan
Although, that is not the situation in “The Friar’s Tale” prologue. In the tale’s prologue, the Friar says, “A summoner is a runner up and down / With summonses for fornication known, / And he is beaten well at each town's end” (Chaucer FP 19-21). The Friar chooses to narrate his story about the faults in a summoner because he wants to provide “an even broader context of contemporary criticism” (Bryant 181). The criticism that the Friar is “about the rapacity of church courts” seeking for profit from the people that are being tried at the court rather than providing them justice to help them gain money (Bryant 181). The Friar also had a “broader context” for criticising the summoner for his misconducts. The Friar used the summoners as a wall in between friars and corruption so that when a church official is blamed for corruption, the summoners will the one who the people will blame before the friars. In the middle of his prologue the Friar ensures that the pilgrims have a “pretentious sense of his social role;” (Lenaghan 282) since he mentions, “And leave authorities, in good God's name, / To preachers and to schools for clergymen” (Chaucer FP 12-13), to let the Wife of Bath know that she does not have the authority to punish the people who have done wrong …show more content…
The Friar, rather than just boldly stating his view on the summoner, utilizes the common people and the “other characters speak about him”(Passon 168). The Friar not only uses this technique to describe the faulty attitude that the summoner, who is in a higher position among the clergy men, has; but also to provide a distraction from the friars when people think of corruption. Later, as the Friar is continuing on with his tale, he describes how the summoner with the help of his assistants is able to get personal information about the society before the bishop can. Friar also notifies how the summoner is “a slyer rogue”, and how no other miscreant, in all of England matches the level of vilianism that the summoner has (Chaucer FT 58). In the midst of all these detailed descriptions, the Friar manages to notify how the summoner, “by his competent jurisdiction,” would use his “power to punish,” which was just to hoard as much money as possible from each individual who was illicitly caught by one of the summoner’s minions (Chaucer FT 55-56). The Friar providing all this minute detail about the turpitude that the summoner uses is important, yet the fact that the Friar is the narrator of this is highly “ironic because the friar himself” is known for troubling people to gain money off of them (Lenaghan