1)Character Analysis of Prioress

The Prioress is trying to be very, well, dainty. She has all these funny habits, like singing through her nose, speaking
incorrect French, and eating so carefully that she never spills a drop. She does these things, Chaucer tells us, because she
"peyned hir to countrefete cheere / of court" (139 – 140), or tries very hard to seem courtly. When she sees a mouse
caught in a trap, she weeps, perhaps believing that this is how a damsel of the court would behave. Of course, two lines
later, we learn that she has no problem feeding her hounds flesh, so her weeping over the trapped mouse is probably,
like most of her habits, an affectation – a behavior the Prioress adopts to seem a certain way (in this case, like a courtly
damsel), but which doesn't really reveal her true feelings.

Though the Prioress may try to seem dainty, in point of fact she's a very large woman: Chaucer tells us her forehead is a
full hand-span broad and, come to think of it, she's not underfed. In keeping with her goal of seeming courtly, the
Prioress is very elegantly dressed, with a string of coral beads attached to a pendant that reads "Amor Vincit Omnia," or
"Love Conquers All." The beads and the pendant are interesting because this being a prioress, or nun who is in charge of
a convent, we would expect her to be carrying rosary beads with a crucifix on the end. But instead she is carrying vanity
beads. The pendant, which could refer to God's love, in her case more probably, refers to the courtly love between a
damsel and hero in one of the romances that were popular reading material for women of this time period.

So here's the thing about the Prioress: as a religious figure, she should be all kinds of things that she very clearly is not.
What are these things? Well, take a look at the Parson's portrait, which represents an ideal religious figure in the
General Prologue, to find out the answer. With the Prioress, our first example of someone from the religious life, we
have not only our first supposedly pious person with her priorities out of whack (a situation we'll definitely see again),
but also our first example of someone who's trying way too hard to be perceived a certain way, and how ridiculous that
looks.

We should note that the Prioress has a nun with her who serves as her "chapelyne" or secretary, and three priests, who
probably help her out by saying mass and administering the sacraments in the abbey she runs. Although we get no
portraits of these pilgrims, two of them, the Second Nun, and the Nun's Priest, tell tales later on.

Character Analysis of Monk

The Monk, Chaucer tells us, is a manly man. The Monk's favorite past-time is hunting, and to this end he keeps gorgeous
(and probably expensive) horses and greyhounds. Like the Prioress, the Monk is all sorts of things that, as a religious
figure, he should probably not be – a hunter, overfed, expensively-dressed in fur and gold jewelry, and a cultivator of
expensive habits. But the Monk is willing to admit that he doesn't live a traditional religious life of hard work, study, and
fasting, claiming as his excuse that he is a modern man, disdainful of the old traditions. So, out with the old fuddy-
duddies like Augustine, who would have the monk slaving away over his books in a cloister, and in with the new – the
new, in this case, being a comfortable life of sport, fine food and clothing, and amusements outside the monastery's
walls.

Of the Monk's physical appearance, we learn that he is fat, bald, and greasy, with eyes that roll in his head. In medieval
physiognomy, the practice of drawing conclusions about someone's character from their physical appearance, rolling
eyes like this might be a sign of impatience and lust for food and women. This part of the Monk's portrait foreshadows
the interaction between the Monk and the Host after the Tale of Melibee. At this point, before asking him to tell a tale,
the Host praises the Monk's brawn and bulk and laments that he is a religious figure because, were the Monk not
pledged to celibacy, he would surely impregnate lots of women! The Host says that he thinks the Monk would be a stud
if given the opportunity, but considering the Monk's lack of respect for the "old" traditions of the religious life (and that
mysterious love-knot pendant tying his hood), we think it's likely that he probably already is one.
With the Monk's portrait, we see another satire of religious figures who are supposed to live a monastic life of
deprivation and hard work, but instead live a life of luxury and ease. Similar to the Prioress, the Monk is doing all kinds
of things which, were he really pious, he would not. The Monk, though, is more self-aware about his departure from the
pious life, taking the defensive stance of being a "modern" man, an excuse that rings somewhat hollow to discerning
ears.

2) COMARISON B/W PRIORESS AND MONK

Both the Nun and the Monk are guilty of breaking their vows of poverty and obedience. Both own pets, which would
have been considered a luxury. The nun has pet dogs and the monk has greyhounds that he uses for hunting. Keep in
mind both of them should have a life dedicated to helping the poor, praying, and working in the abbey or
monastary. Both are also dressed better than they should be and both are very well fed.

Chaucer portrays the nun as somewhat of a phony with her manners and her substandard French. He gives this long
description of her table manners, but then goes on to say she only appears dignified. He also references her large
forehead. During this time period, a broad forehead was thought to be a sign of good breeding and intelligence, but her
forehead is huge! Chaucer is exaggerating this feature to poke fun at her belief that she is so dignified and proper. He
does say that she is "charitable and pious," but in the next line we find out this is only towards animals.

The monk is shirking his duties in the monastery to go out hunting. He doesn't want to do the studying, as the books
make his head spin, and he doesn't want to do the hard physical labor. Instead he is out with his greyhounds
hunting. Like the nun, he is well-dressed with fur-trimmed robes and he is wearing a gold pin.

Neither of them are particularly bad people, but they do not take their vows seriously.

3)The Prioress
Chaucer has painted an utterly charming and elegant portrait of the Prioress. She is named Eglentyne or Sweetbriar. She
has a broad forehead, perfect nose, blue-gray eyes, and thin red lips. Her smile is simple and coy. Her appearance
conforms to the contemporary ideal of a beauty. She only swears by ‘St. Loy’ which is to say that she hardly swears at all.
She sings the divine service very well with a pleasant nasal intonation and can speak French elegantly. She is obviously a
lady who has not forgotten her past of extravagance and fine living. She strives to imitate courtly manners which are
evident in her precise table manners where she even takes care not to wet her fingers too deeply in sauce. Her tender
heart runs over with pity at the sight of dead or bleeding mice caught in a trap. She is fond of animals and feeds her
three dogs with roasted meat and expensive fine bread. Chaucer criticizes the Prioress by praising her very faults. The
Prioress’s kindness to her pet dogs is seen as a weakness. Her charity should extend towards needy people rather than
animals. Moreover in the medieval world animals were not thought to possess souls and were as such outside the
scheme of salvation. As a nun she cannot strictly follow the rules of simplicity and poverty. This is seen in her love of
jewelry as she possesses a red-coral rosary and an elegant gold brooch with the vague motto ‘Amor vincit Omnia’ i.e.
love conquers all. Keeping her ecclesiastical background in mind the inscription should rather have been ‘Amor Dei’, i.e.
concerned with divine love instead of worldly profane love. She is elegantly dressed in a cloak and her wimple is neatly
pleated. Thus Chaucer combines strokes of irony with unconcealed appreciation in his presentation of the gentle,
demure, aristocratic and worldly Prioress.

The Monk
Chaucer presents a corrupt Monk who loves the good life and finds more pleasure in hunting than studying in the
cloister. The Monk’s weakness for good food and expensive clothing and his love for hunting violate the monastic vows
of poverty and simplicity. He is riding a sleek berry brown horse on his way to Canterbury. The bells attached to his
horse’s bridle tinkle pleasantly with the wind. Chaucer ironically pronounces that the Monk is perfectly suitable for the
office of abbot. The Monk, Daun Piers, is an outrider; i.e. he takes care of the monastery’s estates. He spends more time
outside his cloister than he should. He does not care at all about the rules laid down by St. Benedict and bears no guilt
about the fact that he rides out instead of devoting himself to his monastic duties. Chaucer ironically agrees with the
Monk’s point of view and innocently asks why should the Monk make himself mad by pouring over a book in a cloister.
The Monk’s pleasure in hunting is a fitting object of satire. In the Middle Ages Monks who took delight in hunting were
severely condemned by the reformers. In fact hunting itself was considered an immoral activity. Chaucer’s Monk is a
perfect hunter and one who takes extreme interest and pleasure in tracking and hunting wild rabbits. He thus keeps fine
horses and well bred hunting hounds in his stable. The Monk is a worshipper of materialism. The sleeves of his coat are
trimmed with the finest gray fur in the land. His hood is fastened under his chin with an exquisite gold love knot. His
boots are supple and expensive. His bald - head and face shine radiantly as if anointed with oil. His large eyes roll in his
head and gleam like a furnace under a cauldron. He is healthy and well fed and loves to eat a plump roasted swan.
Chaucer ironically concludes that the Monk is certainly a "fair prelat". Chaucer’s subtle ironic portraiture of the ‘manly’
Monk and repeated approbation of the Monk’s abilities only arouses the reader’s derision.

4) comparison of prioress and monk

Chaucer begins his General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales by providing brief, descriptive portraits of each of the
pilgrims before they set out on their pilgrimage. While there appears to be no rhyme or reason to the seemingly
haphazard amalgam of personalities Chaucer includes in his prologue, the pilgrims portraits say something significant
about them as individuals and as they related to medieval society. Both the Prioress and the Monk, for example, are
ironically ill-suited to their holy professions. They are not necessarily bad individuals, but, put within their professional
contexts, it is easy to see that Chaucer intended them to be objects of criticism and satire. Using cunning sarcasm,
subtle shifts in tone, and vivid details, Chaucer exposes the Prioress and the Monk for the worldly, hypocritical, and self-
serving individuals that they really are.

The worldliness of the Prioress and the Monk is evident immediately in their portraits. The Prioress portrait opens up
with descriptions of how she is so modest and coy, speaks French fluently, and has such refined table manners (119-
130). These details seem more fitting for a noblewoman than a nun. Nuns are not supposed to be concerned with how
they look while they are eating, or in pains to imitate the behavior of courtly cheer (139-140). Yet the narrator’s
amorous tone when describing the Prioress physical appearance in lines 152 to 157, as well as the mention of the
inscription Amor vincit omnia on the Prioress brooch (162), suggests that Chaucer thinks she would be more suited for
courtly romance than godly love. Yet the Prioress is not the only one who seems unfit for her religious role. The Monk is
first introduced in the General Prologue as an outridere that loved venerye (166). He is a hunter and an outdoorsman.
Focused only on earthly things, he spares no cost for his appearance. The sleeves of his coat are lined with the finest fur
of the land, and his boots are soft (193-194, 203). Taking great care to look good and be comfortable, it is evident that
this monk would not be one to wear a hair-shirt or take a vow of poverty, as was custom for monks at that time. Thus,
choosing worldliness over holiness and self-involvement over God, he as well as the nun violates the very codes of the
religious order they supposedly represent.

Yet worldliness is not the only thing making these hypocritical figures unholy. The Prioress is cold and unconcerned for
the welfare of people, despite the fact that she is supposed to care for the needy. Illustrating this, the Prioress is
sarcastically described as being so charitable and so pitous that she would weep if she saw a mouse caught in a trap.
Plus, she would feed roasted flesh, fine white bread, and milk to her dogs (143-147). This may not sound bad to the
animal-friendly, modern reader, but considering that the Prioress is a nun from the Middle Ages, her preference for
animals over people is anything but charitable. She is just like the wealthy Americans who sent jets and airplanes to
rescue stranded animals in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit, but totally ignored the thousands of people who
also needed help. Loving animals and humans is one thing, but there was not a single reference to the Prioress helping
people throughout her entire portrait, and that is exactly what a nun, or any compassionate person, is supposed to do.
Clearly she is wealthy enough to afford fine foods for her dogs. Why not extend that wealth to feed hungry humans?
The possibilities are endless, but her focus is entirely self-involved.

Her hands-off approach to serving God is only surpassed, however, by the Monk’s utterly direct rejection of religious life.
The Monk hypocritically calls himself a monk, but completely disregards all aspects of a monk’s life. For example, he
doesn’t believe in being cloistered, and he disagrees with the statement that hunters are not holy men (188-189).
Sarcastic in tone, Chaucer’s narrator agrees with him and further ponders the question as to why a monk should have to
be cloistered and study until he is crazy. Then he asks why a monk should have to toil with his hands and work as St.
Augustine bids (184-187). Clearly, these questions are just as reasonable as asking why a blacksmith should have to work
with metal all day in his workshop, or a veterinarian work with animals? The answers to these questions are so obvious
that it only emphasizes how ridiculous it is for the Monk to behave the way he does. Being cloistered, studying, working,
and serving are requirements of the job. The Monk, however, is so self-serving that he cannot possibly imagine a life
without his horse, his hunting gear, and his greyhounds, much less a life indoors, serving God. His behaviors are so
contrary to the values of religious life that it is hard to imagine why a person like the Monk would even choose to remain
a monk, or the Prioress a prioress, for that matter.

Thus, using telling details and biting sarcasm, Chaucer reveals both the Prioress and the Monks unfitness for holy life.
However, Chaucer did not intend for the Prioress and Monks portraits to be criticisms of Christian religion as a whole.
Not all people who work within the Christian framework are worldly, hypocritical, or self-serving. But the portraits of
the Prioress and Monk do serve as criticisms of individuals who behave contrary to the religious order they represent.
This theme is present even today. It is the reason why there are so many jokes about Catholic priests doing not-so-
priestly things behind closed doors. Perhaps Chaucer wished to expose a universal truth about the hypocrisy of people
to which even a modern reader could relate. People are not always what they seem to be, what they say they are, or
what they should be. If they were, they would not be nearly as fun to read about.