Through his dress- fur-trimmed sleeves and supple boots- the monk's taste for opulence is similarly disclosed. The irony of his position is portrayed in his description where Chaucer doesn't just suggest, but actually points out that the Monk's face was "as he hadde been enoint", while he is hardly worthy of such a thing considering his recklessness.
The Monk is described as a "manly man", and as a man with .
which cleverly lets the pilgrim expound his own beliefs:.
What sholde he studie and make himselven wood,.
Upon a book in cloistre always poure, .
Or swinken with his handes, and laboure, .
As Austin bit?.
(184-187).
This very energetic argument makes it seem that Chaucer is backing up his opinion. The Monk seems to be requesting not the way of life he has commited himself to, but the life free of religious duty and any other restrictions,as a well-off landlord. This line of reasoning is being repeated sarcastically, since this suggestion makes a mockery of his religious craft, and is so absurd, though the Monk himself does not realise this. Chaucer also critisizes the Monk through the description of his the things he owns, where he is described as having "ful many a deyntee hors". This blatant disregard for his vows of poverty thus diggs himself deeper into Chaucer's condemnation. But, in the end he is concisely encapsulated, "Now certainly he was a fair prelaat" (204), which shows that he was not really a bad person.
Continuing on the theme of misplaced interests, the Prioress is described, without supposedly realising the importance, as a lady obsessed not with her religious duties, as one in charge of a nunnery should be, but with looking and acting as a fashionable courtly lady. Even from the first description of the Prioress, which unexpectedly, is her face, one learns that it is "ful simple", suggesting a lackadaisical, careless attitude, as opposed to a more sombre-looking face that is expected of someone in her position.
