Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales contains stories told by people whose characters and personalities come from every side of the spectrum. As a result, the reader gets a wide range of morals and maxims, ranging from love to hate, religion to blasphemy, and honesty to dishonesty, etc. Since all the tales end with some sort of moral or lesson, many people take The Canterbury Tales for simple children's fables. However, Chaucer's main purpose for the tales is to portray the existence of morality and the lack thereof in his time.
Chaucer first introduces us to his feelings of man's morality in the Prologue. Within the Prologue, Chaucer introduces the story along with the twenty-nine pilgrims and the host. As I said before, the personalities of the pilgrims, introduced here, create such a variety that it seems to shine light onto every personality trait. Within this vastness in personalities, many examples of morality and immorality take place. For instance, the lack of morality can easily be found within the miller, "a master-hand at stealing grain." Not only does the miller steal from his clients, but he was considered "a wrangler and buffoon, [who] had a store of tavern stories filthy in the main." A second character, the Friar, displays a similar immoral character. The Friar could be found "anywhere a profit accrue, courteous he was and lowly of service too." Using his churchly position, the Friar would swindle innocent believers out of their money by posing as a church member with proper papers (to marry, to hold confessions, etc.), which, of course, weren't anywhere in his possession - a fraud. Third: the Pardoner. Chaucer implies the Pardoner's hidden immorality by describing his golden locks as awful "rat-tails". Much like the Friar, the Pardoner also enjoyed using his position to bring in a profit. He sold pillowcases saying they were "our Lady's Veil" or "the sail St.
