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Canterbury Tales Chaucer's "The Canterbury Term Paper

The contrast between the pardoner and the content of his tale also shows that from a literary perspective, Chaucer was illustrating a new subtly of character. What a character thought he was like (a holy man) might not be who he or she actually was. This could be revealed through involuntary 'slips of the tongue,' like the pardoner condemning greed, even while he was a greedy person in life. What one said, medieval thought now recognized, was not always congruent with what one did, even if one was a member of the...

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Chaucer's valorization of the middle class and the emerging trades people of the Middle Ages is seen in the bawdy humor of the "Miller's Tale," which not only is viewed in a positive regard, told by an earthy man of the people who works for his bread with the sweat and toil of his hands, but also 'sends up' individuals who marry for status and money, like the many young women featured in the tales who wed older men for monetary gain, and are driven to infidelity out of sexual frustration.

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