Geoffery Chaucer Technique of characterisation in 'The General Prologue' from the Canterbury Tales

 Technique of characterisation

The character - painting in the Prologue has won wide acclaim.  It has been said that, of all the character - writers in English Literature from Ben Jonson to Wordsworth none is so great as Chaucer.  The various characters introduced in Chaucer's Prologue are both types and individuals and there lied the greatness of Chaucer as a creator of characters. 

 In portraying the, various characters, Chaucer adds certain characteristics to each of his character which make him an individual.  Thus, he lends each character on individuality by adding him or her certain characteristics.  To illustrate this point clearly and in detail, we may consider the Knight first.  Chaucer's Knight is a typical Knight of his age representing the fast- fading chivalry of the middle ages.  But he is also an individual who had been honoured in foreign lands above all other Knights.  His son, the young Squire, represents the jollity of youth as well as the spirit of the rising chivalry of the times.  Like his father, he is not interested so much in war and adventure as in singing, dancing and love-making.  He does not go to any war for the sake of his religion and country but to win the favour of his lady.  He also an individual who has fondness for bright colours and fine apparel or clothes.

In the Prologue, Chaucer selected a large number of representative of contemporary society.  His selection of characters deserves consideration.    

• The Doctor is perfectly true to type. He is grounded in astronomy.  He prescribes remedies at the opportune moments, according to the stars.  But he is also individualised.  He is clad in blood-red and blue gray and he loves gold especially "for gold in medicine is a cordial".
    
• The Miller and is shown stout, with powerful muscles and large bones.  He possesses the bull's strength and on the tip of his nose there is a wart on which grows a tuft of red hair.  All these Characteristics stamp him as an individual who can easily be differentiated from other Millers. 

           

• The Wife of Bath is one of the loftiest characters of Chaucer.  She is also individualised by her deafness, her scarlet stockings and her large hips.  She had married five husbands.  Besides this, she has had many lovers in her youth.  Her marriages with five husbands, her love affairs with many persons and her knowledge of the remedies of love bear the stamp of individuality.

      

Irony and satire are among the most striking features of Chaucer's characterisation in the Prologue.  There is a predominance of comic satire.  Almost all the ecclesiastical characters, with the exception of the Parson, are objects or mockery and ridicule.  The very dress and the fashionable manners of the Prioress are ironically described.  In the case of the Monk, Chaucer ironically refers to his violation of the rules of monastic discipline.  Thus we find Chaucer unmasking the absurdities, the greed, the immorality, and the hypocrisy of various characters.

Socially unimportant characters:  

• The cook is of course, professionally expert.  But he has weakness for ale and he has an ulcer on his skin. 
• The shipman, too, is inferior to none as a sailor.  But he is represented as finding some difficulty in managing his horse and as wearing a gown of coarse cloth reaching his knees.  
• The Merchant is also typical one in so far as he makes money through usury and illegal transactions but no one knows that he is in debt.  This fact that he is in debt has an individual touch because not all merchants are in that state.  
• The Yeoman is truly a member of his class in carrying a sword, a dagger, a horn and a mighty bow.  But Chaucer lends him an individual quality by telling us that he wore the medal of St. Christopher on his breast.

The Prologue contains a number of ecclesiastical characters.  Here also almost every character is a combination of typical and individual characteristic.

• The Prioress speaks French fluently and elegantly.  She has acquired excellent table-manners, knows the court - behaviour and is charitable.  Her creation shows that Chaucer has created her straight from the fourteenth century world. But she is also individualise she has a romantic name, Eglantine and she wears a brooch which bears an ambiguous motto "Love conquers all."  
• The Monk is true to the type also like a large majority of the monks of the times, he too is an idler and fond of a luxurious life.  He neither labours with his hands nor pores over a book in the cloister.  But this monk is also individualise.  He is fat and has bald head which shines like a mirror.  
• The Friar is true to the type.  He misuses his powers of confession and absolution in order to make money.  He does not deal with the sick or the poor with the rich.  But he has his individual characteristics.  He has merry voice, can sing well and play on the fiddle.

Thus, Chaucer's characters are types as well as individuals.  They are the symbols of some particular class, age, ground or profession but they also have their own particular traits, their own ways of talking and doing things.  Each of the twenty - nine pilgrims in the Prologue is morally and socially representative but he is also an individual with marked peculiarities of his own.