Canterbury Tales Essay Example For Students

Canterbury Tales Essay Throughout history all different parts of the world have been devastated bynatural disasters. Whenever something created by nature destroys a certain areaof the world, people tend to group together and overcome such a tragedy. Ourtale will begin in one of the busiest and diverse places in the world, New YorkCity. The month was September and the day started off a bit chilly for an earlyfall day and the wind was blowing hard. Warnings had been posted for possiblehurricane conditions, and the city had become a frenzy of activity. Some werebusy preparing for a possible devastating hurricane and gathering supplies whileothers were going about their daily routine unaffected by the chaos surroundingthem. As they day progressed the sky became darker and the wind picked upstrength. The possibility of a storm occurring increased by the minutes and soonbecame a citywide warning. By this time most people were able to understand thata violent and unpredictable storm was about to overtake the city , but there werestill some who didnt believe the reports from the weather channel. Soon therain started coming down in sheets and the wind increased to hurricane styleconditions topping over 100 mph. Power was lost quickly and buildings and homeswere being ripped apart from the wind and debris flying about. Parts of the citywere damaged severely from the beginning effects of the hurricane and there werepeople in need of help. The city officials prepared ahead of time and set upshelters for those who needed protection and assistance. I for one decided totake the opportunity and reside in a shelter for the vast majority of thepassing storm. As the storm progressed outside, the shelters quickly filled upwith terrified city-dwellers unable to predict what was occurring outside ofshelter walls. Natural disasters can bring about a caring and sensitive side inpeople, and those seeking comfort and relieve are able to turn to those aroundthem to receive this ease. The shelter I was residing in happened to gather aninteresting and diverse group of people. Myself and 24 others turned to reliedon each other and gathered together in a cluster and began to converse. Maybethey just wanted take their minds off of the hurricane outside, or maybe theywere just bored out of their minds, but whatever our reasons may have been doesnot matter. Because this gathering occurred allows me to tell you this tale Itwas hard to make small talk among such a large group so I came up with adifferent idea. I remember reading a book back when I was in high school where agroup of people told stories to pass their time on a long journey they were alltaking together. I figured that since none of us were going to be leavinganytime soon that we might give it a try. I suggested it to everyone andsurprisingly they all agreed. I explained to them the basic storyline of thebook that I was mimicking and they all felt that it would be interesting to seewho could come up with the most interesting and reali stic story that providedall the basics of humor and romance rolled into one. It was decided that aftereveryone completed his or her tale that we would take a vote to see which talethe majority enjoyed most. The winner would then receive a prize that would bedetermined later. Before I begin the stories, let me give you an introduction toeach one of the people that I was gathered with. I will present you with eachcharacter in the order that they introduced themselves. Ill begin with thelow-budget porn star. He is an out of work actor who had to turn to makingcheesy porn flicks so he could survive and pay his bills. He was just waitingfor his big break to come along so he could make it into real show business andbecome more well known outside of his typical porn circle. He was born andraised as a New Yorker and he has the New York accent to go with it. You cansense his intelligence from his choice of vocabulary and The Prostitute camenext. Now I dont mean to stereotype her at all, beca use she seems like a verynice girl. Her childhood was a rough one, starting from when she was just alittle girl. She grew up taking care of herself since her mother and fatherdecided that their social life came before her well being. Not only did herparents neglect her, her father also abused her. Unable to deal with livingthrough all the pain that was being inflicted on her, she decided to leave. Shewas a runaway at the age of 13 and escaped to the streets of New York City totry and make a living. Even though she had to learn to be an adult on her own atsuch a young age, she was still unable to make it successfully in the city. Herneed for money and lack of skills left very few options for her to pursue. Whiletrying to figure out what to do she met up with an older girl of 18 who had beenthrough the same ordeals and was willing to take her under her wing. This girlhappened to have succumbed to a life of prostitution, so this seemed to be thebest option she had that would provide he r with money. The Hillbilly was next tointroduce himself. He was raised on a small farm in Nebraska with his parents,six brothers, three sisters along with four grandparents, two aunts and twouncles and seven cousins. Being that he lived with such an extended family, hewas never able to receive much privacy and we will just say that his family wasvery close and tight-knit. When he reached the ripe old age of 15, he like manyof his friends turned to their cousins to marry and start a family. He wed hisneighborhood sweetheart, Betty-Sue and the two settled down into her familysattic. After failing at his life-long dream of being a NASCAR pit crew workerafter a freak accident involving a tractor trailer where he severely mangled hishand, he has succumb to a life of farming and raising 8 children. The hackercame next. By day he is a hard working bank teller, but by night he hacks intothe worlds most prestigious computer programs. Along with hacking he has a sidehobby of creating and des igning deadly computer viruses in hopes to one day ruinthe entire world computer system. He is a very secretive and anti-social type ofman. He has never had real friends, just random acquaintances from work orschool. His type of work requires total secrecy so he does not get caughttherefore he trusts no one. The Millionaire was a unique individual, and spokenext. He had the privilege of being born into money and he carried on thetradition and took over daddys corporate office and continued to make his ownmillions. At home in one of his several mansions he has a wife and two childrenwhom he hardly knows. Because of his lack of contribution towards his familylife his children dont know him and he and his wife have a non-existentmarriage. The Welfare Queen was next to speak. Her family consists of 6 children(all have different fathers) with one on the way. She was never taught how totake care of herself and is unable to understand the concept of hard work. Theonly way she knows how to survive is by constantly bearing children so she canreceive a larger welfare check each month. Currently she rents a 2-bedroom shackand shares it with her out-of-work boyfriend. She currently has 11 children andjust keeps popping them out in order to get her check every month. Next is theConceited Athletic Hero. Hes the type of guy who is too good to signautographs for small children who marvel at him and would rather pretend thatthey didnt exist. His father instilled in him that sports and winning wereeverything and that if you didnt bring him a trophy you would be ostracizedfrom the family. He doesnt love or even enjoy the sport he is playing; ratherhe just does it to get the paycheck each week. He has the garage full ofexpensive cars, the beautiful wife (whom he cheats on) and a plethora ofgorgeous houses. Since his life was empty and he had very little to life for, hechose to turn to drugs and alcohol to drain his sorrows. The Beauty Queen camenext. She was like many other self- centered beauty queens, whose life consistedof being obsessed with winning beauty contests. The first contest she enteredwhen she was two was the Beautiful Baby Contest, and she won. From then on herstage-mother continued training her since a baby. She instilled upon her thevalues and standards that winning is everything and that losing was just notacceptable. She has never been able to stand up to her mom and always dreamt ofthe day when she can escape from her grasps. Her dream was to run away toHollywood and become a famous actress and marry an actor. The day finally camebut instead of going out to Hollywood she came to New York City. She defiantlydid not give off the impression of being intelligent, more the dumb blonde type. The mind body distinction is a myth derived from philosophers such as Plato EssayDont worry. Im in the basement. They dont even know Im here.Joel was calm now and had time to think. OK, but keep it that way.The boss said reluctantly. We need the kid. No witness, no trial, you knowthe story. Look, Joel. Get some sleep and Ill come down tomorrow inperson. Sunlight shone through the vents along the east wall as Joel woketo answer the door. He was still dressed, but had been sleeping and was notfully alert. He opened the door and yawned. Before he had even closed his mouth,the assassin shot the silenced pistol, putting a large hole through Joels head. The assassin then stepped over the body and made his way to Adam, who wassleeping on the couch. He pulled a piece of nylon rope from his pocket andcompleted his mission. He then left the basement room as quietly as he hadarrived. No witness, no trial. Writing this paper allowed me to reach into mycreative side a produce a paper that I was to create a group of characters thatto me represented the American culture. Some of my characters I tended to baseon famous people, like the Barbara Walters news reporter. I felt that byincluding real people in my story I would be depicting a more realistic type ofcharacter that could be related to better because there would be something tocompare them to. Other characters were based on people that I have known, but Ichose not to tell their whole life story. Instead I chose a few differentmoments from throughout the years that I have had in contact with them, andcreated a character based on their life during a certain time period. Take forinstance t he Hard Working Mother, that character is based on my own mother, butfrom ten years ago. During that time she had to work two jobs in order tosupport my brother and myself while trying to keep up with payments on thehouse. The rest of my characters were based on just general characteristics ofpeople that I may have seen in a movie or on TV or from the news. Each characterthat I put into this tale was meant to represent an average group of people, andall 25 characters together were hopefully meant to symbolize all the Americanpeople in general. Everyone is not meant to be able to relate to the entirepersonality of a character or just one character, you should be able to sharethe same traits with bits and pieces of a few characters. Hopefully those whoread this will be able to associate with some of my characters and connectdifferent aspects of their life and views with the ones I have created. Thereason I chose to tell a story from the point of view of the Hacker is because Ifelt tha t his lack of trust in people would be the easiest for me to tell astory about. He was the perfect character to have the lack of confidence inother because of his lifestyle and chosen hobby. The story I told I hope gaveoff the impression that there is a good reason behind not trusting people andrelying on them to keep your best interest at heart. The Hacker being anintelligent man and his ability to hack into certain websites like the FBI andCIA may have come across this in the form of a case. Maybe he just conjured thestory out of his head so that he could show the entire group his reasons for nottrusting friends or family or colleagues. Wherever he got the idea for the storyfrom the reasoning behind it was still the same. Although I tried to parallel mytale and the Canterbury Tales closely, it was hard to follow exactly. It wasdifficult to try and give backgrounds for 25 completely various people,personality traits, views, and past experiences. It was also tricky to try anddecide which information you should provide the reader and how that particularcharacter would react to it. All in all I hope that my creations of 25characters did for the most part describe American life, as it is known today inthe Twenty First Century. In time these people will change and a new CanterburyTales will have to be written in order to conform to that particular generation. Canterbury Tales Essay Example For Students Canterbury Tales Essay Throughout literature, relationships can often be found between the author of astory and the story that he writes. In Geoffrey Chaucers frame story,Canterbury Tales, many of the characters make this idea evident with the talesthat they tell. A distinct relationship can be made between the character of thePardoner and the tale that he tells. Through the Prologue to the Pardonerstale, the character of the Pardoner is revealed. Although the Pardoner displaysmany important traits, the most prevalent is his greed. Throughout the prologue,the Pardoner displays his greed and even admits that the only thing he caresabout is money: I preach nothing except for gain (PardonersTale, Line 105). This avarice is seen strongly in the Pardoners tale aswell. In the Pardoners tale, three friends begin a journey in order to murderDeath. On their journey, though, an old man leads them to a great deal oftreasure. At this point, all three of the friends in the tale display a greedsimilar to the Pardoners. The three friends decide that someone should bringbread and wine for a celebration. As the youngest of the friends leaves to gobuy wine, the other two greedily plot to kill him so they can split the treasureonly two ways. Even the youngest decides to put it in his mind to buypoison / With which he might kill his two companions (383, 384). Thegreed, which is evident in the character of the Pardoner, is also clearly seenin the tale. Another trait that is displayed by the Pardoner and a character inhis tale is hypocrisy. Although the Pardoner is extremely greedy, he continuesto try and teach that Avarice is the root of all evil (6). Thecharacters in his tale display great hypocrisy as well. As the tale begins, thefriends all act very trustworthy and faithful towards all of their friends. Theynobly make a decision to risk their lives while trying to slay their friendsmurderer. As they talk about their challenge, they pledge to live and dieeach of them for the other, / As if he were his own blood brother(241-242). At the end of the tale, the brothers begin to revealtheir true nature. They all turn on each other in an attempt to steal thetreasure for themselves. All of the loyalty, which they had pledged, was simplya lie and no faithfulness remained. While the two older brotherplotted to kill the younger, the younger brother plotted tokill them both and never to repent (388). Thus, these so-called faithfulbrothers display their true ruthlessness and reveal their hypocrisyin relation to the Pardoners character. The characters in the PardonersTale match the unctuous nature of the Pardoner in a great deal of ways. All of these traits and ideas that are seen in both the Pardoner and the talethat he tells show a strong relationship in the two. Chaucer used this techniquein all of the tales that are recorded in Canterbury Tales. This technique givesa greater insight into the mind of the teller. By analyzing the tales, it ispossible to learn much about the teller of the tale. Using this method, Chaucerfocuses on the characteristics of each of the people involved in CanterburyTales, but also keeps the poem interesting. Book Reports