ANALYSIS - The Prioress

The present text is written in order to analyse the characterization of the prioress from General Prologue by Geoffrey Chaucer.

Actually, what the reader expects considering the title is to be going to read about a person devoted to religion and pray, who has much to teach.

The characterization starts describing his frequents oaths and his intonated voice during chorus, destructing reader’s expectations. The only elements of the text which links to religion is Sant Loy, who is not so known and marks the knowledge of the prioress. However, these first aspects of the subject create curiosity in reader’s mind who wants to keep reading.

The characterization continues depicting the nun from her manners at meat. The narrator spends 10 lines to describe her perfectionist during meals. This sounds important and the speaking voice conveys the idea of a pedantic person who wants to be respected and to affirm her authority. The narrator also attracts the reader reinforcing the first of the lines with the alliteration of the sound /w.

Up to this point, the prioress has acquired a sort of solemnity and integrity, nonetheless this falls down during the following lines where strainging and bearing convey she is trying her best to be decent and correct but these adjectives don’t actually describe her, since she is pretending.

Also, the line "As for her sympathies and tender feelings" connote her real personality who is doing something reluctancy, indeed she is actually sentimentalist. Suffice it to say she looks after some dogs and scares easily in front of a mouse.

His shape becomes graceful and gentle, her clothes and her traits make her like a kind girl; however, due to the ambient she works in, she is constricted to maintain rectitude and propriety, even if she is a free spirit.

These are conjectures the intelligent reader can do after veiled hints of the speaking voice, anyway it becomes clear in the last part of the text, when the narrator makes a open reference to his polite nature using her set of beads, where is engraved a Latin formula: "Amor vincit omnia". According to the prioress’ opinion, love ever wins and it might refer to God’s love.

Thus, some of the expectation of the reader are verified, others no since the nun is characterized as a singular prioress.

Last but not least, is useful to define the strategy used by the narrator in order to present the protagonist, which is either the telling or the showing one. As a matter of fact, the speaking voice refers to his appearance, but also to his behaviour.