Irony in Chaucer S General Prologue Research Paper

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Friar and the Pardoner in Chaucer's "General Prologue"

The Friar and the Pardoner represent in Chaucer's "General Prologue" two ironic figures: they are meant to be examples of faith and virtue to secular society (the friar is a monk without a monastery -- a priest who administers the sacraments of the Church to the faithful; and the pardoner is an agent of the Church, offering indulgences to sinners who repent and wish to receive the indulgence in exchange for a donation to the pardoner, who is supposed to convey it to the Church). Both should be symbols of goodness -- yet Chaucer uses them to show the depth of corruption and complacency that had entered into the Church by the 15th century. The Pardoner sells indulgences and turns the Church, which should be a spiritual institution reflecting the Word of God and the purity of Christ, into a cheap pawn shop. The Friar accepts bribes ("a good pittance") from those he "gently" shrives -- in other words, he gives easy penances to those who confess to him in exchange for a donation ("General Prologue" 222-224). Like the Pardoner, the Friar is one who places money before the good of God. This paper will show how Chaucer's heavy reliance on irony and satire in the portrayal of the Friar and the Pardoner encourages readers to explore how evil can be found in all walks of life and how the Church was being degraded by materialistic men within its ranks.

As Marie Hamilton points out, Chaucer's Pardoner is "an illiterate layman, asking leave of no one, rendering account to no one, but trafficking in pardons as spurious as his relics" (Hamilton 48). In other words, he is a disreputable man who has wormed his way into a position vis-a-vis the Hospital of St. Mary Rouncival (Chaucer describes him as an agent for Rouncival) ("General Prologue" 671) and uses it to pad his own lifestyle by counterfeiting relics and pawning off indulgences. He represents none of the honor, dignity or sacredness of Church institutions, religious faith, and spirituality. He is not exactly a "hypocrite," as Robert Babiee (83) notes, for there is no sign that he actually believes in the salvation he is peddling. He is a huckster bringing up the rear of the pilgrimage in the hopes of making a profit off any naive persons he may meet along the way.

The pardoner is, moreover, unrepentant -- which is the real irony at the heart of his character. He makes no apologies for his actions and, on the contrary, revels in his ability to dupe unsuspecting clients. His boast of having in his sack a relic of "Our True Lady's veil," as well as a piece of St. Peter's sail, and a bottle of pig's bones that he sells to "some simple parson" ("General Prologue" 698-704) for a sum that took the buyer months to accumulate -- all of this speaks to his impervious nature -- a man determined to hoodwink and trick the pious and the simple. The man who should represent what it means to make a good confession, displays none of the requisite contrition within himself required for such a confession.

Yet Chaucer concludes his introduction of the Parson by stating that "he was, in church, a fine ecclesiast" ("General Prologue" 710) -- a balance to the way in which Chaucer introduces him as a "gentle pardoner" ("General Prologue 670). In between these two bookend compliments, Chaucer crams his description of the Parson with so many jokes and satirical barbs that the irony cannot but hit the reader between the eyes. This "gentle" soul "bleats like a goat" ("General Prologue 691), views himself as stylish even though he is really just disheveled ("General Prologue 685), and has a face so smooth and without hair that Chaucer sees fit to compare him to a gelding -- a castrated horse ("General Prologue" 694). In short, there is nothing manly or masculine about the Pardoner -- and as a representative of the Church, who "sang an offertory" as well as anyone ("General Prologue" 713), he cuts a very well-satirized figure. The Church, after all, is supposed to be the source of virtue, a word which stems from the Latin virtus -- manliness. The Pardoner is the exact opposite -- a comic inversion of manliness, in fact.

Ruth Nevo asserts that "Chaucer's irony" works because "it has the whole structure of the work to support it" (Nevo 1) -- which is to say that what ultimately makes some of Chaucer's characters resonate so ironically is the fact that their antitheses can also be found within the covers of the work. For instance, the Pardoner very likely would not seem as terrible were there not a man of noble character (the Knight, for instance) and a man of true humility and devotion (the Parson) among the assorted cast. By providing foils and representatives of either extreme (both good and bad), Chaucer allows a texture to develop between the lines: the Parson, as a result, stands out as even more of bad man by the sheer fact that he is in the company of others who shine so brightly.

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Their light makes his all the dimmer.

The Friar, of course, is just as bad: he takes advantage of his post as a confessor in order to let penitents off with easy penances in exchange for some remuneration. This, he judges, is better than being like the "begging lepers" he sees ("General Prologue" 242). Thus, the Friar, who should have taken a vow of poverty, is fearful of being poor and placed in a position where he would be forced to beg -- like an impoverished Franciscan. He wants a comfortable existence and he is willing to sacrifice his duty as a confessor to give the appropriate penance to the penitent as well as his dignity as a priest of God. He is a man who has compromised with the world for which he is supposed to be setting an example of righteousness; instead, he sets an example of easiness and frivolity that laypeople take advantage of, seeing that they can confess their sins to him rather than to the other local parish priest (who, it is implied, gives out more strict penances) and in exchange offer the Friar a small pittance for his "kindness." What is kindness, in their eyes, is not what the Church would view as kindness -- and what Chaucer suggests through the character of the Friar is that laxity on the part of the clergy has reached a dangerous point: instead of making it their duty to help souls through discipline in the confessional, clergymen like the Friar are hurting souls by not showing the tough kind of love that they need in order to overcome their bad habits and turn over a more virtuous leaf in the service of honoring their God. The Friar is, by all accounts, a sell-out.

Paul Cavill and Heather Ward agree in their assessment of the Friar: he is one of those who use the Church, "its status, privileges, and rituals for their own purposes" (Cavill, Ward 16). The Friar is a user: he takes advantage of his place, of his vocation, for a purpose that is out of line or out of keeping with his station in life. Instead of devoting himself to the service of the Church and to the good of souls, he represents carelessness towards this objective that is justified by his own good humor and the comfortable living arrangement he has secured for himself. In short, he places a moral veneer on his self-centeredness and calls it being clever.

If, in fact, there is any difference between the Friar and the Pardoner, it is one of mere externals: they may look different, but interiorly they are the same. Monicaa McAlpine refers to the Pardoner as a "homosexual" -- a particularly heinous and offense thing to be in Chaucer's era, when the sin of Sodom was viewed with much more disgust than today (McApline 8). And the Friar, very likely, would have found a place alongside the Pardoner in Dante's Inferno -- for as Frederick Tupper points out, the "Seven Deadly Sins" were realities in the Middle Ages that led souls to damnation -- graphically depicted by Dante in the century preceding Chaucer's arrival on the literary scene (Tupper 93). Thus, these two ecclesiastical authorities, however minor in their stature they may be, remain as representatives for a Church designed to save souls from damnation -- and, here, the Friar and the Pardoner act as pathways to damnation -- either for themselves (which is the case of the Pardoner as he is more of a predator/robber) or for themselves as well as others (which is the case with the Friar as he seduces the young -- usually female -- into conspiring with him to lead a life of spiritual laxity). There is something smug about both the Friar and….....

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