Canterbury Tales

To complete this reading response, please respond to one of the topics below. Your answers should include evidence from the text to support your claims (either in the form of paraphrase or quotation) and analysis to back up the claims you are making. You should demonstrate that you have read and considered the literature. Your response should be between 300 and 400 words. Directly under the words ” Assignment Submission,” you have the option to type your response into the textbox by selecting “Write Submission” (if you use the textbox, please do not forget to use the spell check function) or to attach Microsoft Word documents (Microsoft Word is available to students for free. For information, see the “Getting Started” page). You may type additional notes to me in the comment box, but I will not grade submissions submitted through the comment box (located toward the bottom of the page, under the words “Add Comments”). Be sure to hit submit.
Topic Options (choose one):

1. The Pardoner
Analyze our storyteller’s character, paying attention to his prologue, his sermon, and his epilogue, or ending, of the tale. How would you describe him? How does his own character connect to his tale’s moral that greed is the root of all evil? Why do you think he is on the pilgrimage? Is he a redeemable character? Why might Chaucer choose for this character to tell this particular story?
2. Storytelling
Storytelling is important to Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales is a series of stories. The Pardoner uses a story to instill moral lessons about greed. How do you see storytelling working within this text? In what ways does the Pardoner’s story match the sermon he tells at the beginning of his tale? What is the stated goal of the Pardoner’s story? Does he have an unstated goal?
3. Harry Potter Fans
This question is for those who have read or seen the Harry Potter series. J.K. Rowling draws upon The Pardoner’s Tale for her story of The Tale of the Three Brothers (about the origins of the Elder Wand, Resurrection Stone, and Invisibility Claok). What similarities do you see between the The Pardoner’s Tale and The Tale of the Three Brothers? Why might Rowling have alluded to The Canterbury Tales in her story?

Choose one character from The General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales (Knight, Pardoner, Wife of Bath, etc.). Do NOT choose one that a group mate has already included in his or her post.
Become that character’s identity within the Middle Ages. In your first post, answer these questions:
What is your day-to-day life like? What do you imagine yourself doing?
Who do you regularly talk to? Where do you regularly travel?
Were you born into your position, or did you choose it?
Who has power over you? Whom do you have power over? Who are you dependent on? Who is dependent on you?
In your remaining two replies, you may do the following:
Respond to each others’ posts, adding items or discussing them.
Consider how our class system in the US compares to the one in our text. Who has power today? How do they get that power? Who lacks power? Why?