Canterbury Tales Pilgrim Analysis and Characterization
Characterization Chaucer directly characterizes the knight as a good and righteous person by saying he is “a valiant man” and “a true, perfect, gentle knight” (5). ... Chaucer the pilgrim describes the monk as being a great holy man with his statement that he is “a manly man, capable of being an abbot” (9), but then Chaucer the poet shows him as wasting money on extravagances by pointing out the “bells on his bridle [that] jingle in the wind as loud and clear as the chapel bell” and as not abiding by the book—and, therefore, not being a very good monk—by mentioning that “he didn’t give a plucked hen for that text which says that hunters are not holy men, and that a monk, when he is heedless of duty, is like a fish out of water” (11). Then Chaucer the pilgrim refers to the friar as being “a dignified man” (11) and says that “he was a noble pillar of his order” (13). ... Best to Worst Pilgrim Analysis I think the best pilgrim of them all is definitely the parson.