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
Theme:
- 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
- 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 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