Chaucers Canterbury Tales - Concept of Charity in the General Prologue :: General Prologue Essays

The Concept of bounty in the General Prologue In the General Prologue, Chaucer presents an array of characters from the 1400s in localize to paint portraits of man dishonesty and stupidity as well as virtue. Out of these twenty-nine character portraits three of them are especially arouse because they deal with charity. bounty during the 1400s, was a virtue of both religious and human traits. One character, the Parson, exemplifies Chaucers idea of charity, and two characters, Prioress, and Friar, to satirize the idea of charity and found that they are using charity for either devious reasons or egress of convention or habit. According to the definition from the Websters dictionary, charity means bragging(a) to the needy and suspensoring the poor. In Chaucers time, however, charity meant much more. It included a love of G-d and doing the will of G-d as well as the kind of person one is. Thus Charity had two separate, one human, the other divine. both parts tha t mixed in different portions depending on a person. Charity was a human virtue that the Church encouraged. People believed that if one does something good, he will be rewarded by G-d. Many people did meaningful, charitable things break the uprightness of their hearts, but others had done it for other reasons. Those reasons included making specie from peoples suffering and giving to charity because someone told them to do so, rather than from the goodness of their hearts or to ease the suffering of others. Chaucer plays off both of these parts of charity in his portraits to show how they can be combined otherwise in different people and to distinguish true charity from erroneous charity. Parson exemplifies Chaucers idea of true charity. Even though Parson does not have any money, he considers himself exuberant spiritually. Going around the village, he teaches the poor and those who cant go to church about what G-d is and how to be a religious person. He gives mor e than he receives. In fact, he avoids preaching to the rich and well-to-do because he prefers going to the humble and poor, who truly need his help and G-d. He doesnt run to London to earn easy bread