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The Canterbury Tales: An Analysis of the Friar and Summoner's Tales

The Friar's Tale

Historical Background: The Friar

Characters:

Setting:

The Friar's Tale (cont.)

Genre

  • England

Theme:

  • Revenge tale
  • The Summoner
  • Old Widow
  • Yeoman/Devil

Plot:

  • Similar to monks in values
  • Spend most of their time outside spreading the Word of God
  • Emphasis on poverty - begged for money for income
  • The Friar believes that anyone like the Summoner who gives into greed earns themselves a place in Hell.
  • Summoner is on his way to an old widow's home when he meets a Yeoman
  • Both admit that they live off of extorting people
  • Yeoman reveals he is a devil in disguise
  • The two arrive at the widow's home where the summoner asks for a bribe
  • The widow tells the summoner to go to Hell and he and the devil disappear

Historical Background: The Summoner

The Summoner's Tale (cont.)

The Summoner's Tale

Theme:

  • Called sinners to court
  • Position offered opportunities to take advantage of their power
  • The Summoner believes that all Friars are lying, hypocritical crooks who will try to steal all of your money.

Plot:

Genre:

Characters:

Direct and Indirect Characterizations

  • Revenge tale
  • Friar visits Holderness to lead the town in mass
  • Visits a sickly man named Thomas after finishing mass
  • Thomas tells the man that he has given money to twelve friars, and he has not gotten better
  • Friar tells Thomas that payment split twelve ways can't do much
  • Thomas is angry at friar's hypocrisy
  • The Friar
  • Thomas

The Summoner's Tale:

  • The Summoner directly calls the Friar a liar in the tale's prologue
  • The friar tries to persuade Thomas to give all donations to him alone

The Friar's Tale:

Setting:

  • The summoner is a thief and steals from his master
  • The summoner lied about how his master was harsh to him so that he can justify why he steals from his master.
  • Holderness, Yorkshire, England

Allusions

The Friar's Tale:

  • Judas
  • Texts of Christ
  • Dante
  • Virgil

The Summoner's Tale:

  • Hell
  • Cambyses the drunk king
  • Cyrus the Persian king
  • "Dives and Lazarus"

Social Commentary

  • Members of the clergy are corrupt extortionists
  • People of the lower class epitomize greed that will use their position to take advantage of others
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