supposed to be a house of God, it was really a house of corruption. His satirical descriptions of the religious pilgrims show that they didn’t care for what the church stood for or for what the people believed in, all they cared about was their own personal welfare and self gratification. In a sense, Chaucer is saying that the Church’s real foundation was money, and all of its religion was only implemented to ensure that the people would keep coming back (Brewer 68).The rest of the Prologue contains small but significant descriptions of the other characters. The most humorous of these descriptions is the description of the Wife of Bath. Pilgrims that are lower on the social scale usually don’t receive very vivid descriptions., but Chaucer makes an exception when he describes the Wife of Bath. He starts off his description by telling of the Wife of Bath’s very humorous physical description. Chaucer says that she has a gap between her teeth, a very large and broad body, and a very fat buttocks. He also adds that she is very lewd and boisterous. Overall, the Wife of Bath is made out to be a very ugly woman. Strangely, men seem to like her because she has been married five times (Chaucer 15). The Wife of Bath’s description isn’t serious at all, and it is only included in the story to provide a the reader with some humor.One other character that receives a somewhat humorous description is the Summoner. Chaucer describes him as having a fiery-red face with narrow eyes, black and scabby eyebrows, 5and a scanty beard. He also adds that the Summoner had boils and pimples all over his face, a face that any child would fear. Chaucer then compares the Summoner to somewhat of a monster because he says that the Summoner would shout and scream like a madman. As long as liquor was poured, he would utter every single foul word he knew in Latin, and he would continue to say them all day (Chaucer 22).In ...
