CANTERBURY TALES (I)

Chaucer's use of irony is somewhat subtle. The reason for this was because he wanted to illustrate that people aren't always who they appear, what we nowadays render as "Don't judge a book by its cover". The Monk and Friar are morally corrupted and the reader can easily discern that. More than anything, the prologue seems to serve as a satire of medieval English society than anything else. Chaucer is an impartial narrator and seems to treat all the characters with the same respect (or lack therefore of). He seemingly just throws in the irony in there as if it's no big deal and it's easy to see how people during his time period would be oblivious to it. Out of all the characters, I look forward to reading the Friar's because he seems like the biggest hypocrite of them all but it's so bad that I want to know of his exploits.