الإصدار 5 - العدد 14 (2026-05-20)

Carnivalesque Subversion and Social Critique in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales

Dr: Abbas Fadhil Raheem

Open Educational College – Karbala Center

This study sheds light on the carnivalesque jubilation of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales as another means of a social critique that subverts medieval structures. Using Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of carnival and the carnivalesque as a backdrop, this study explores how Chaucer abuses humor, grotesque realism, inversion of social roles and polyphonic discourse to subvert ecclesiastical power, feudalism and patriarchal structures in late fourteenth-century England. By way of selected close readings—of the Miller's Tale, the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale, the Summoner's Tale, and finally the Pardoner's Tale—this study states that Chaucer operates a literary carnival where official medieval ideology does not rigidly apply: he reveals their contradictions and hypocrisies among Church doctrine, aristocratic privilege, and patriarchal marriage institutions. The results demonstrate that Chaucer's carnivalesque antics function not out of leisure but as complex acts of social criticism that invite us to refute the legitimacy of prevailing power hierarchies, only to reestablish the necessity for societal cohesion. In addition to this, the study adds a further contribution to ongoing academic discussions surrounding Chaucer's engagement with his contemporary sociopolitical climate, as well as the radical potential of medieval literature.