Geoffrey Robertson

Natural selection is the favouring of specific traits in an environment. Organisms able to adapt, or who are born with favoured traits, have a better chance of survival over others. In Robertson Davies’ Fifth Business, the main characters model the process of natural selection. When Dunstan Ramsay is reborn after the war, he is better suited to the environment of Deptford. Paul Dempster faces many challenges in Deptford. The reason he survives is because he moves into an environment that better…

Mary Dempster was the wife of Amasa Dempster, the Baptist priest of Deptford, Ontario, Canada. She was a kind lady and very introverted. While her husband was very religious and constantly felt as if God was testing him, Mary was not so involved in religion. However, she did not let her husband’s strong belief in God influence her life. She was calm, even-tempered, and believed that things would all eventually be resolved. Mary’s life changed when an incident occurred on December 27, 1908, which…

The Canadian nation has been shaped in myriad ways and has been documented as well as interpreted by countless individuals. Canadian Studies 4611: Reading in Canada has highlighted pivotal works the have influenced the critical conversation within the country: how Canada is – or was – and why it is that way. This essay will explore the work of Margaret Atwood, Northrup Frye and Charles Taylor in order to illustrate the status of Canada within their work and highlight if and how their writing…

Throughout history, there have been several pieces of literature that are remembered for their educational and recreational value. One of these highly acclaimed pieces of work is The Canterbury Tales. Geoffrey Chaucer composed a thrilling frame tale that includes multiple stories within the plot, which encompass several different values that were essential to have when this book was written. Chaucer included 20 different stories into one, with drastic variations of moral and ethical values.…

entertainment they provide, fairy tales also serve to teach a lesson. Many of those lessons we have heard throughout our whole lives. There is one tale that could be considered one of the earliest examples of a fairy tale. It is an excerpt from the famous Geoffrey Chaucer 's Canterbury Tales, and it is most commonly known as "The Wife of Bath 's Tale." "The Wife of Bath 's Tale" embodies the characteristics found in many fairy tales including that of teaching a lesson.…

The Father of English literature, Geoffrey Chaucer, was born around the year 1340 in London, England. He was born into a wealthy family who acquired their money from the wine industry. In his early life, Chaucer attended the St. Paul’s Cathedral School as a student where he became familiarized with writing. His first position was when he was hired a public servant in the year 1357 to Countess Elizabeth of Ulster. During this time of his young childhood, he went off to fight in the Hundred…

Imagine having the opportunity to be the judge of 24 stories and having to pick the very best one. In Chaucer's, The Canterbury Tales, there are 29 pilgrimes in which they are making a pilgrimage to Canterbury. Each pilgrim is to tell at least a tale to and from Canterbury, resulting in 120 tales in which Chaucer was only able to record 24 tales. Within the telling of these stories, there is a contest in which the pilgrim, the Host, chooses the best Tale. In selecting the winning tale the story…

In The Wife of Bath Tale, Geoffrey Chaucer portrays the Wife as a woman who contradicts with certain commands told by her husband. Her character and her beliefs correlate with the tale she tells through marriage, sovereignty, and virginity. In the Middle Ages, men were thought to have control over their wives from the sense of God. God made Adam and Eve so they could explore the perfection of Earth, love one another, and obey God’s teachings. However, they rebelled against God’s word when they…

Reality in the Sarcasm (A Discussion on Chaucer's usage of Satire to Meet His Agenda.) Geoffrey Chaucer was known as the father of the English Language. During Chaucer's time in the late 1300’s, he had many issues with the state of how people lived. He used his writing to criticize the societal issues he noticed during his time. He uses Satire in his writings to get his message across to the common people during the 1300’s. Satire is defined as the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or…

Draft - Sin of Pride in the Canterbury Tale Back to the fourteenth century, numbers do not only contain numerical values, but also symbolic meanings. Numerological symbolism plays an important role in medieval literature. Lucas Scott points out the significance of medieval people’s belief in numbers: “[medieval reader’s] treatment of numerological prognostication would be incomplete without a discussion of the link between letters and numbers. Medieval Christians explained many of their symbols…