Which pilgrim develops a logical friendship with the pardoner

Out of these tales, the pilgrims also set the competition of storytelling. They seem to be impatient as well, as Miller jumps in to tell his tale after the Knight without waiting for his turn. Everyone tries to tell the best story continuing the competition, even though most of the stories are the versions of the stories already told.

The thematic significance of Christianity can be marked by the fact that the tales take place in a religious setting where everyone is going on a religious pilgrimage. Most of the notable figures of the church; the Monk, the Nun, the Parson, and the Friar are detailed in the general prologue, representing distinct areas of the church of that time.

Some of them are true worshipers of Christ, while the others are corrupt. Therefore, Chaucer has artistically painted the picture of the custodians of the church having spoiled the true spirit of Christianity.

Class or status is another notable theme in The Canterbury Tales. This theme is explored through the comparison of the people who belong to a better class with those who attempt to appear as an upper class. Chaucer has presented two diverse characters, the Prioress and the Parson in the prologue. It is through these characters; he foreshadows the importance of status in medieval society.

The Prioress, a nun by profession, is seen as an up-to-date woman, concerned with her manner and behavior. In contrast , the Parson, a clergyman, acts and behaves keeping in mind his class and duties. At the beginning of the poem, no one can tell them apart; by the end of the poem, they are still bound to each other, but have become different characters, praying to different gods for different fates—victory or love. This double transformation: from mortal zombie friend to mortal deadly enemy, and from utterly alike to differentiated, speaks back to one of the most influential classical writers on friendship, Cicero.

We lived in the same home; we soldiered together in the field. The moment they see Emelye, they break their vow of friendship to each other and begin to become different characters, though still bound to each other in rivalry.

Palamon sees her first but actually shows her to Arcite; Arcite sees the God of love with two arrows in his bow, one for each of them, and they chart together how each in turn is struck by love. They both are uncertain whether she is a woman or a goddess and marvel over it together, rather than taking sides on the issue. Arcite is freed because a dear sworn brother of Theseus intervenes on his behalf, and Palamon jailbreaks successfully with the help of another faithful friend.

When Palamon discovers Arcite sleeping in a grove after his escape, he admires the beauty of his changed face and refuses for the sake of love to disturb his sleep. It is only when both are at large and free to fight for Emelye that violence enters their relationship, and it soon passes. Once Theseus stops their mad fight in the woods, enlists them in his tournament plan, and gives them estates in Athens from which to organize their tournament parties, they take up their loving brotherhood again and live for a year in peace and luxury as bonded noble celebrities within Athenian society.

They argue from the moment Palamon first glimpses Emelye, and their differences develop much faster as a result. In sum, Chaucer goes out of his way to capitalize not the friendship and love between the two men, but their rivalry and mutual hatred. Why does Chaucer make these changes?

Why turn brothers into rivals and sisters into mourners? I think there at least three reasons. In medieval England, sworn brotherhoods and other forms of friendship were strategic ways of securing alliances and obtaining support in a society of unprecedented risk and mobility in the wake of the great plague that struck England in Such alliances could serve many interests, and it was difficult to legislate against them or regulate them.

In twenty-first-century societies, similar corporate old boy networks have not gone away. Problems of nepotism and insider trading illustrate why friendships of this kind might function, especially among the powerful, as insidious monopolies. Another reason for suspecting sworn friendships was ethical. Sworn friends were expected, as Palamon rebukes Arcite, to be faithful to each other until death, even on pain of torture:.

The language of fidelity Palamon uses echoes that of marriage. This is a formal vow of absolute mutual endorsement regardless of circumstances and without moral nuance. No matter what each brother is trying to do: in love, war, or violence, he should be able to rely on the support of his sworn brother.

The absoluteness of the vow of fidelity is what troubles classical and medieval writers on friendship. Friendship could construct strong alliances in right or wrong, for good or for evil. This lack of ethical anchoring impelled theorists such as Aristotle and Cicero to posit against experience and logic that friendship of this sort could only truly obtain between people of the highest virtuous character, who would never consider using the support of their friend to do any wrong.

If friendship were to be used for mere mutual profit, or mere mutual pleasure, it was not, at least in theory, true friendship. Naturalizing this form of friendship within the aristocracy attempts to anchor it in a specific ethos of virtuous courtly behavior. Friendship could be sworn by anyone eager to perform their innate aristocracy or cash in on its status, just as other noble prerogatives such as fine cloths and coats of arms were imitated and adapted across the social spectrum, despite attempts at regulation.

In effect, by striking the chord of sworn brotherhood at the beginning of the pilgrimage, the Knight makes it an irresistible subject for imitation and parody for the rest of his fellow travelers.

In actual practice, as Chaucer shows, Palamon and Arcite turn out to be fair-weather friends who break apart as soon as their desires come into conflict.

In all the Canterbury Tales where brotherhood oaths occur, Chaucer seems to go out of his way to deny the possibility of the truly self-sacrificing, other-centered friendship that Palamon espouses. Chaucer is fascinated by how people construct themselves within particular social circumstances, not for virtue only but in entanglements of virtue, pleasure, and profit.

Chaucer asks not only how do people make a virtue of necessity, as Theseus enjoins, but also how do people like Palamon, Emelye, Alison of Bath, and the Pardoner learn not only to survive but also to take pleasure and profit from their situations? Yet I think there is a more profound reason that Chaucer is more interested in breaking friendship oaths than in keeping them, and again, it turns on classical and medieval theories of friendship.

Cicero and his medieval followers find in idealized friendship a potential for escaping time and change: a triumph for the steadfastness of the virtuous human heart. Swearing this kind of absolute fidelity to another, whether it is in friendship, marriage, or feudal loyalty, is a gamble on the future and a way to ensure persistence through time.

Such troths purport to freeze the self, set it against change and contingency, and, thus declare a mastery over both time and the self. When, all over the Canterbury Tales, these oaths are broken, their swearers effectively surrender to change and contingency.

They become different subjects. Emelye changes from a warrior virgin to a sorrowing lover. I'd need to look up these questions and do a lot of reading in order to answer them. First Name.

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He intended to tell two stories from each of thirty pilgrims on the way to Canterbury, and then two more from each pilgrim on the way back from Canterbury. Of these, he completed only twenty-four. However, in these tales, Chaucer depicts both the pilgrims and their stories with striking realism. Chaucer was a soldier, a diplomat, a civil servant, and a courtier, enabling him to experience different aspects of each social ranking, which he demonstrated through his poetry.

The Canterbury Tales, his most famous work, is a collection of short stories within a frame story, making for an interesting and memorable narrative about 29 pilgrims. The Canterbury Tales is a collection of short poems written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the fourteenth century. Chaucer presented the tales as a series of stories various characters told in a story-telling contest during a pilgrimage to the Cathedral at Canterbury.

The pilgrimage takes place in the month of April; there are twenty-nine travelers who seek the Shrine of St.

Thomas Becket to offer homage and penance. Chaucer wrote the poems in the native language and vernacular of the medieval period, which.